time to blog

There has been a lot of news about Domino’s reporting good results as people order in pizza rather than dining out.  Apparently they also sponsored some popular tv show, but as I don’t have a tv and that makes research in this area a bit tricky.  Regarding the tv, you should see the reaction on some people’s face when they come to visit only to discover that I don’t have a tv; imagine having to spend the weekend talking to my wife and me. Not to be phased by this, one guy has resorted to bring a portable tv.

Back to pizzas, because I like pizzas; after carrying out research on Domino’s it looks like it is fundamentally ok, I’m not saying good, just ok, however possibly somewhat overvalued: click here to view the full research

If the price of Domino’s falls into the 100p to 150p range it could be worth a closer look.  For now it is probably best investing in their “Honolulu Hawaiian”, “Cali Chicken Bacon Ranch”, Philly Cheese Steak”, “Pacific Veggie”, “Buffalo Chicken” or “Memphis BBQ Chicken” pizzas.

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The following article was published in the 31 January - 6 February 2008 edition in the Shares magazine. As ever a big thanks to the folks at Shares, especially the editor Steven Frazer.

Want to time your share sales to minimise your capital gains tax bill? A new website has been launched to help private investors get to grips with their tax liabilities. The site – www.timetotrade.co.uk – will give you an insight into how HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) will treat your gains.

Developed by Sensatus, the portal takes into account indexation, taper relief on Aim shares as well as factoring in the impact of offsetting losses made on other shares. It’ll give you an idea of whether if you were to sell now you would exceed your £9,200 annual tax exempt allowance for the tax year ending 5 April 2008.

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The following abstract, is from an article written by Elaine Moore that was published in the weekend edition of the Financial Times on the 19th of January 2008. A big thank you to Elaine Moore and Matthew Vincent who is the new editor of FT Money.

Last year 3m people filled in their self-assessment tax form online. According to the Revenue, many more are expected to do so this year. So it looks as if the writing is on the wall for any remaining Luddites still stuck ticking boxes in black ink.

The deadline for payment of all tax owed, and for sending in completed tax returns for the 2006-07 tax year, is January 31.

But for the next tax year everything changes. Anyone filing a paper return for the 2007-08 year will have to send it in by October 31. Those who choose to file online will have until January 31 2009.

Online filing is convenient for HMRC because it saves it time spent entering data and logging returns sent by post. But there are a number of reasons why it’s good for you too.

“HMRC’s site has improved substantially over the years,” says John Whiting, tax partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers. “The design of the site means that if you click on certain boxes you will automatically be taken to the next relevant page.”

A handy feature of the site is that partially-filled forms can be saved and returned to later on if required. But the biggest incentive of filing online is that the site automatically calculates the tax you owe. There is also an automatic acknowledgement for all online forms, which may bring peace of mind if HMRC staff decide to strike on January 31 over job cuts.

The site covers most situations, but not all, according to Whiting. Those with large capital gains may have difficulty. However, a tool called timetotrade (www.timetotrade.co.uk) can help. It can give investors a view of their collective capital gains tax position in order to help them complete tax forms.

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The following news article was published by the Guardian’s Money Observer on the 17th of January 2008:

Investors looking for a helping hand with their tax liabilities before the tax return deadline on 31 January can get a helping hand with a new tax tool from website timetotrade.

The tool calculates investors’ capital gains and income tax liabilities for share-related transactions. Investors are given a birdseye view of their tax position and can model various investment disposal scenarios to maximise tax breaks and work within annual tax allowances.

The advanced Pro Package costs GBP19.99 a month or GBP199 a year. Visit www.timetotrade.co.uk

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The following news article was published in the What Investment Tax Planning section on the 14th of January 2008. As ever a big thank you to the editor Keiron Root.

Timetotrade.eu has launched a new tax management product that helps investors calculate and manage their capital gains tax (CGT) and income tax liabilities for share-related transactions.

In preparation for the 31 January tax return deadline, Timetotrade calculates investors’ capital gains and losses based on the HMRC share identification rules.

It includes support for indexation, taper relief, and offsets current and brought forward losses against gains to determine your tax liability.

The tax tools help investors complete self-assessment CGT and income tax returns and generate UK Inland Revenue form 185 for investment clubs.

Dary McGovern, managing director of Sensatus, the developers behind Timetotrade, says: ‘We have been working closely with private investors and the UK Shareholders Association during the development of Timetotrade. In doing so, it quickly became apparent that a solution was needed that would help investors determine their tax liability.’

To access the tax tools, visit www.timetotrade.eu

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Currently in timetotrade we are working on a fundamentals products that we will begin beta testing in the coming weeks. As part of the development of the product, we have carried out a lot of research into the correlation between price and fundamentals.

All I can say for now, is that the results have been extraordinary! We will be writing a paper on our findings when the fundamentals product is ready for market, but until then I will say no more.

To put the research to the test, I entered the Share Crazy Trading Places competition in September 2007. The competition involved five contestants plus Share Crazy’s Joe Public and we were each given £1,000,000 to invest in an imaginary portfolio. At the start of the series, we each had to pick five stocks and every week on a given day, we had to sell one stock and buy another; that meant no stop losses, limit buy or sell orders, position sizing or risk management.

The show started on the 26th of September 2007 and finished on the 14th of December 2007, and every Wednesday I had to ‘kick out’ one stock and buy another. You can view the shows by clicking on the following links:

• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8
• Week 9
• Week 10
• Week 11
• Week 12
• Finale

So does the new fundamentals product work? I’ll let you decide:

The beta trial of the new timetotrade fundamentals product will begin in the coming weeks and will be available to all timetotrade users for free during the beta test phase. To set up a timetotrade account click on one of the following links:

Create a FREE timetotrade Private Investor account now

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According to Andy Warhol “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes”. Apparently it is also said that, “everything comes to he who waits” or as an entry on The Retail Blog phased it, “everything comes to he who waits, as long as he works like hell while he waits”.

At Sensatus we have been working round the clock and it turns out Andy Warhol was right, well almost. The Sensatus Investment Club got its fifteen minutes of fame on the BBC News; to be more precise one minute and fifty nine seconds of fame.

The Sensatus Investment club have been considering some alternative investments, such as wine. To help understand how to invest in wine, Paul Dudley from Vinum Investments offered to travel to Brighton to talk us through it. At the same time Nigel Cassidy from the BBC was looking for some light hearted news over the Christmas period and came along to film the event.

We met up with Paul at a speciality wine merchant in Brighton called Quaff, which is run by Toby Peirce. If you find yourself in Brighton looking for a really good bottle of wine (or you can buy online), you will be very impressed by what Quaff have to offer.

As for investing in wine, it really does sound like a good proposition and an excellent way of adding some diversity to our investment portfolio; to check out some of what Paul had to say on investing in wine and to meet some of the Sensatus Investment Club, check out the following piece that was broadcast on BBC News. If you are looking for more information on investing in wine, click here to get in contact Paul from Vinum Investments.

Best wishes for the New Year from everyone at Sensatus.

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There is an interesting book called “One Up On Wall Street”, by Peter Lynch, Simon and Schuster. Within the book it discusses the characteristics of the Perfect Company to invest in. It makes interesting reading to compare the investment criteria of one of the all time great stock pickers to see how well your own stock picks measure up.

According to Peter Lynch the Thirteen Characteristics of the Perfect Company are:

1. The name sounds dull – or, even better, ridiculous: “What Wall Street analyst or portfolio manager in his right mind would recommend a stock called Pep Boys – Manny, Moe and Jack – unless of course the Street already realises how profitable it is, and by then it’s up tenfold already”
2. It does something dull: “I get even more excited when a company with a boring name also does something boring. Crown, Cork, and Seal makes cans and bottle caps. What could be duller than that?”
3. It does something disagreeable: “Better than boring alone is a stock that’s boring and disgusting at the same time… Take Safety-Kleen. Safety-Kleen goes around to all the gas stations and provides them with a machine that washes greasy auto parts.”
4. It’s a spinoff: “Large parent companies do not want to spin off divisions and then see those spinoffs get into trouble, because that would bring embarrassing publicity that would reflect back on the parents. Therefore, the spinoffs normally have a strong balance sheets and are well-prepared to succeed as independent entities.”
5. The institutions don’t own it, and the analysts don’t follow it: “If you find a stock with little or no institutional ownership, you found a potential winner. Find a company that no analyst has ever visited, or that no analyst would admit to knowing about, and you’ve got a double winner.”
6. The rumours abound: Look for companies that have been sold off based on unsubstantiated rumours.
7. There’ something depressing about it: “In this category my favourite all-time pick is Service Corporation International (SCI), which also has a boring name… Now, if there’s a anything Wall Street would rather ignore beside toxic waste, it’s mortality. And SCI does burials”
8. It’s a no-growth industry: “Many people prefer to invest in a high-growth industry, where there’s a lot of sound and fury. Not me. I prefer to invest in a low-growth industry like plastic knives and forks… In a no-growth industry… there’s no problem with competition.”
9. It’s got a niche: “I’d much rather own a local rock pit than own Twentieth Century-Fox, because a movie company competes with other movie companies, and the rock pit has a niche.”
10. People have to keep buying it: “I’d rather invest in a company that makes drugs, soft drinks, razor bales, or cigarette than in a company that makes toys.”
11. It’s a user of technology: “Instead of investing in computer companies that struggle to survive in an endless price war, why not invest in a company that benefits from the price war”
12. The insiders are buying: “There’s no better tip-off to the probable success of a stock than that people in the company are putting their own money into it”
13. The company is buying back shares: “Buying back shares is the simplest and best way a company can reward its investor.

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It is strange how quickly time slips by. I was looking at the dates when I last posted and realised that almost 9 months had slipped by; when I last made a post, we had just launched the investment club accountancy product. Since then we have added a number of new features, such as the ability to attach documents and embed images in a private club forum, plus a suite of performance reporting and taxation products for private investors.

More recently we have introduced performance reporting features as part of an early stage beta trial. The performance reporting in its full glory will enable you to view your investment performance as a combined pool of assets, or drill down to view the performance of a specific portfolio or stock within the portfolio. You will then be able to compare the performance of the portfolios or stocks to market indices, specific stocks or your other portfolios. Which leads me to two other important changes since I last posted.

Two new developers have joined Sensatus, mainly Jason Cartwright, who has taken on the role of Systems Architect Director and Christine Ottaway who has joined us as a Software Engineer. Christine has been working around the clock on the Performance Reporting feature and promises to have it fully up and running by the end of December! There are fingers on the line here.. no we won’t chop off one of her fingers for missing the deadline… then again having recently completed a Wilderness First Aid course, which by the way was excellent, it would be good to get some practice in…

Jason on the other hand took on the pain staking task of developing a suite of tax products for private investors, which is now available on beta trial. After rolling out the investment club product that manages investments club accounts and generates their tax returns, we had a lot of UK private investors asking us to develop a product that would calculate their personal UK Capital Gains and Income tax.

As a result we have now introduced a new suite of taxation products that are available for beta testing when you log into timetotrade. The Capital Gains product calculates your UK tax liabilities based on the investment transactions that you have entered into your timetotrade ledgers. It works out realised gains and losses, disposal dates, based on the UK Inland Revenue Share Identification rules such as the Same Day rule, Bed & Breakfasting FIFO rules, LIFO matching from 1998 and Section 104 holdings. The Capital Gains product also calculates, Indexation for Section 104 holdings determines your Taper Rates for business and non-business assets and Allocates Losses from your current years losses and carried forward losses; the end result is statement of your taxable gain after taper relief and allocated losses.

Everything has been laid out in the format required to complete your Capital Gains Self Assessment tax return, SA108. Using the timetotrade Capital Gains product, you can now determine your tax liability at a glance and view your unused annual exemption and losses. You can then model disposals to determine your resulting tax liability to make best use of your annual exemption. Another nice feature of the Capital Gains product is that it will also let you know when you have to complete and return your SA108 tax return.

If you would like to have a look at the new timetotrade Capital Gains tax product, click on the following link to view a demo account: timetotrade Capital Gains demo

When prompted to enter an email and password, use the following details:

Email: demo@sensatus.com
Password: demo1

If you would like to start using the timetotrade Capital Gains tax product, then click on one of the following links to set up a timetotrade account:

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The following article was published in the Business section of the December 2007 edition of Insight. A big thank you to everyone at Insight, especially the Publication Manager, Sarah Agnew.

Sensatus software company Sensatus is making waves in the financial trading market

Sensatus was founded in May 2006 and is one of the new wave of Brighton software companies, specialising in web based financial products that help private investors and investment clubs to make money, save money and manage their investment affairs.

The company is the brainchild of Dary McGovern, a seasoned trader of 13 years experience. He began investing in his student days, during the early 90’s, and since then he has learned a lot of lessons, some the hard way - the name Sensatus comes from the Latin meaning ‘gifted with wisdom’.

Despite fine tuning his trading strategies over the years, Dary was frustrated that he could still miss trading opportunities when away from his computer; while away snowboarding one year he missed an unmissable trading trading opportunity and so decided to create timetotrade. “Our first investment product, timetotrade was launched last October and is designed to meet the needs of modern investors who don’t have time to sit and watch stock market charts and read every piece of news while looking for investment opportunities,” explains Dary. “As more people move to manage their own finances, we have a growing base of users in the UK and from as far a field as Tanzania and Thailand.”

An investment club is a group of individuals who invest in the stock market by pooling together a small amount of money each month. With over 12,000 in the UK, they provide a supportive environment were investors can learn how to invest by sharing knowledge and experience.

Timetotrade is the first website in the private investor and investment club sector which enables them to manage their investment affairs in one place, view their investments anytime, anywhere from web or mobile browsers, receive investments alerts to mobile phone and email to avoid missed trading opportunities. It also makes savings on accountancy fees, as well as manage their accounts, tax liabilities and tax returns.

“We believe we’re onto something. A survey we conducted in Sussex last December revealed 70% of people would like to invest in the stock market but cited their lack of market knowledge and investment education as their main reason for not investing so far. It is estimated that there are 1 - 1.8 million people actively investing in teh UK as well as +120,000 investment club members - we plan to grow these figures.”

Looking to the future, Sensatus has a number of products in the pipeline for launching in the UK later this year and they plan to “officially” launch timetotrade globally in 2008.