Meeting:

Monthly Meeting -April 2000

 

Held at:

Crewe Arms, Crewe

Date:

19th April 2000

 

 

Time:

17:15 – 18:50

Prepared by

Kit P

 

Chairperson:

Richard W

 

Present:

Chris B

 

 

Richard W

 

 

Kit P

 

 

 

 

Apologies:

Geoff O’F

 

 

Adrian B

 

 

Dave G

 

 

 

 

 

Distribution:

As above

 

 

Chairman’s Acceptance of Minutes

 


_____________________________________________


____ / _____ / ____

Signature

Date

 

 

 

 

1.              Minutes of previous meeting

The minutes from the monthly meeting of 22nd March were accepted without amendment.

2.              Next Meeting

17:00 – 19:30  Thursday 25th May.  Venue Crewe Arms

(To be preceded by EGM to agree revised Banking arrangements)


3.              Actions from previous meeting

3.1            Actions Closed since last meeting

Ref.

Description & Progress

Target Date

DG/0322/01

Amend wording of rule 9a of club rules.  Rules to become approved subject to application of the amendment.

Closed

 

3.2            Actions Carried forward to Next Meeting                                  

See end of these minutes

4.                           Treasurer’s Report

4.1            REPORT SUMMARY

CB supplied his report.

The report showed net total assets of £10,897.93 and unit value of 375.948p.

The current net value if realised on the Science Systems shares was calculated as £2481.00 (a profit of £1,739.86 (or 157% APR) so far on the deal).

The current net value if realised on the ARM Holdings shares was calculated as £4,399.40 (a profit of £3,889.91 (or 614% APR) so far on the deal).

The current net value if realised on the Total Systems shares was calculated as £938.00 (a profit of £172.02 (or 48% APR) so far on the deal).

The current net value if realised on the Parity shares was calculated as £880.90 (a loss of £111.98 (or -39% APR) so far on the deal).

The current net value if realised on the Atlantic Caspian shares was calculated as £260.03 (a loss of -£139.97 (or -115% APR) so far on the deal).

The current net value if realised on the Cable & Wireless shares was calculated as £748.80 (a loss of £27.20 (or -13% APR) so far on the deal).

4.2            MATTERS ARISING FROM REPORT

CB is still trying to collect signatures to change Bankers.

5.              Lucky Llama competition

Kit takes the Llama with a gain of c340 with everyone else falling including Richard taking a whopping 22.8% dive over the 4 week period.

All have until end of Friday 21st April to send in buy/sell requests to be processed at the weekend. 

6.              Portfolio Management

6.1            Stop Loss Triggers

Total Systems, ARM Holdings, Parity, Cable and Wireless and Atlantic Caspian were all below 20% stop-loss trigger so a mandatory discussion took place.  

Re-reading Dave’s commentary from March closely describes the main points raised in discussion about Stop-Loss activity.  However there was recognition that the RSIC portfolio was not performing substantially worse than the market overall and again the decision was to HOLD.

 

Reproduced from !C000322.DOC

“It was agreed that selling on stop-loss alone may not be appropriate but that the stop-loss trigger was necessary to provoke discussion.  There was some concern that we may never sell anything and there could be a psychological barrier to making our first real sale (Workplace Technologies not really being a true sale decision).

General agreement was that if the technology bubble bursts,  it will take a lot of stocks with it but those that survive will be much higher in the long term so are probably undervalued now.  Consolidation WILL occur but how fast or savage it is remains to be seen. If there is a slump then maybe we should go liquid.

Again agreed that the only 2 real reasons for selling should be:-

a)      if we need the money

b)      if there's a better investment elsewhere (including cash)

A possible third reason could be when there's too much risk in one or two dominant stocks in our portfolio.  It was recognised that while we continue to put additional money into our club, the proportion of our portfolio held in ARM (or any other stock for that matter) generally reduces”.

6.2            New Buy Proposals

A Buy Proposal was received and accepted for Tibbett and Britten (TBG). 

6.3            Sell Proposals

No sell proposals.

7.              Competitions

Not discussed

8.              AOB

Some discussion took place between CB, KP and RW about the amount of TBG to buy.  This led into further discussion about the availability of funds for buying activity and about the terms under which new members could join.


Actions carried forward to next meeting

Ref.

Description & Progress

Target Date

RW/0415/05

As part of improving the records we keep on companies, set up and maintain a file on Science Systems

0510: No progress

0628: No progress

0726: No progress

0827: No progress

0916: No progress

1019: No progress

1124: No progress

1221: No progress

0111: No progress

0216: No progress

0322: No progress

0419: No progress

25/05/2000

KP/0827/02

Add Annual Reports to list and email to KP

0916: No progress

1019: No progress – DG has also obtained some annual reports since last meeting so needs to inform KP also

1124: KP to chase

1221: KP to chase all for details of new annual reports

0111: No progress

0216: No progress

0322: No progress

?????  to close?

25/05/2000

CB/0916/02

Increase Market Master direct debit to reflect recent increases in subscriptions

1019: Awaited any late requests for changes to subscriptions before increasing direct debit.

1124: No progress

1221: No progress

0111: No progress

0216: No progress

0322: No progress

0419: No progress

25/05/2000

ALL/1221/07

Consider what we could spend some of the Mirror prize money on to improve our education (e.g. books, subscriptions, data, etc.)

0111: Agreed it would be sensible to spend approx £200 on furthering our education.  All to consider what it could be useful to buy.

0216: RW looked at TechInvest newsletter and it is OK but unlikely that we will act on its tips straight away.  Consideration of purchase of InvestorEase is a possibility though ShareScope is worthy of a look into also.  Agreed to carry  forward action to next meeting

0322: Financial Freebies website has some potential ideas.  DG said that he was considering whether to attend one of the recently advertised Proshare seminars.  The Leeds one is 16th April.  All agreed that the club should cover the cost of this (£19.50) if DG wished to attend, as long as he wrote a report to summarise the seminar.

0419: RW would like to wait for an update to ShareScope in order to re-evaluate packages.

25/05/2000

ALL/1221/08

Send details of useful URLs to club members with brief description of each

0111: No progress

0216: CB and RW have suggested some useful URLs.  RW added that if you register (free) with www.fool.co.uk, the “MyFool” page presents some useful links.

0322: DG supplied a handout from SHARES magazine with some reviewed websites but action is still outstanding

0419: DG to put links on RSIC Website

25/05/2000

KP/12*21/09

Compile and maintain a list of useful URLs

0111: Requires some action on ALL/1221/08 first!

0419: passed to DG

25/05/2000

ALL/0111/06

Consider a suitable speculative investment for the remaining £400 of Mirror competition prize money.

0216: No progress

0322: No progress

0419: No progress

25/05/2000

CB/0216/02

Begin process of transferring current account to Fleming Premier Banking

0322: DG noted that rules state that bankers cannot be changed unless through an extraordinary general meeting.  Agreed to hold an EGM on 19th April to coincide with next club meeting.  Item on agenda to be change of bankers.

0419: Awaiting signatures

25/05/2000