Voyager RNS Log Week Commencing 03/09/2018 As ever, although I may get keen about a stock, what I put into print here is purely me sharing my rambling thought process and NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE to either buy or sell a particular stock. The key to the colouring of text within these notes: Text in normal black: just my thoughts. Text in blue italics: direct lifts or copy & paste from the RNS issues by the business. Text in green: loosely, the investment principles that I feel comfortable with. Red is a disclaimer in that what I write is NOT investment advice. I enjoyed a lovely drive last Saturday taking the slow way through the glorious Buckinghamshire countryside to High Wycombe for our football match. In fact, the drive was so leisurely I even had time to drop into the Bell Inn Winslow for a coffee and spot of lunch; what a lovely way to enjoy a Saturday at the tail end of summer. I note a lot of investors are commenting on social media that the markets at the present time are somewhere between annoying and tough going. That feeling are I feel sure is being voiced by folk who have yet to experience a real bear market. Believe me when the bear growls you most certainly know about it as you watch the various indices drop in a non-uniform stepwise direction usually spearheaded by the previous overstretched darlings of the market. In those surreal days when the technology bubble burst in 2001 and then seven years later this mystery concept of toxic debt emerged, many investors stumbled around on a slippery slope totally dazed seemingly either unwilling or unable to reduce their positions to the sanctuary of cash. Today, we are suffering no more than a very minor skin rash but as we head to the conclusion of the Brexit negotiations and of course the bad boys Trump & Putin playing a game of chicken in some location of the globe when domestic boredom sets in. It’s largely to risk manage these relative uncertainties that I have slimmed down the Voyager and become cash biased. My approach to investing is not one of greed and for that reason, I am simply protecting some of the very generous gains harvested from the last few very fruitful years. If all turns out well and the markets don’t wobble, then fine, as I say, greed does not drive me. On the other hand, if we do suffer some turbulence then I have a cash pile to go bargain hunting with. What I have learnt over the years is that with investing you simply have to have a plan and that plan should consider your reaction to various events both market-wide and stock specific. To run without a plan is simply close to gambling and hoping that things turn out all right. One other thing I would say is that I think investors should not get overly envious in comparing their returns with those of others, especially short term. Your goals are yours and that includes your time horizon. You may well have an entirely different risk/reward balance, maybe you don’t need to sleep at night, maybe you manage a few £k or maybe a million or two. The approach you choose is yours and hopefully, it is well thought through and based on a style that suits your personality. I always say that your prefered style should be backed by a plan. As regards measuring returns, a year is a short period and I only taker serious interest over a minimum three year period whilst at the same time continually jettisoning the lesser performers; it seems just a simple fact that the bulk of your progress is down to a very small number of exceptionally performing portfolio stocks that should be treasured. Looking back over the years, if I have twenty stocks over a period of time it's invariably maybe three or four that do the stellar stuff, the rewarding stuff; ok, the others can contribute a touch as well BUT you can’t let that stop you from exiting the losers. Remember the great words of wisdom from Lynch/Buffett "Selling your winners and holding your losers is like cutting the flowers and watering the weeds." If more private investors could live by those wise words rather than justifying losers by keeping them as “long-term holds”, then I truly believe their returns would greatly improve. Anyway, I reckon there is just about enough RNS news flow this week to warrant a bashing of the keys so, here we go: Monday 03/09/2018: Spectra Systems: SPSY: Mkt Cap £42m: RNS Two New Lottery Wins and Results Date. Firstly what an unfortunately worded headline. The more trusting may well have thought that SPSY had won the Euro Millions not once but twice, wow that’s a nice stroke of good fortune. However, when you read the words within the announcement you become aware that they have actually been awarded two fairly handy but not especially financially significant contracts that run over 7 & 8 years. I guess the interesting aspect is that these contracts are with two customers who have switched from other suppliers presumably that says something very positive about Spectra Systems. SPSY is one of my smaller holdings within the Voyager and just about earning it’s keep so it can stay but with a watchful eye. Monday 03/09/2018: IG Design Group: IGR: Mkt Cap £450m: RNS Informing the market of the completion of the acquisition of Impact Innovations Not that much to say really apart from reiterating the quality of IGR and I expect that quality and production efficiency to become part of the culture within the newly acquired business. Monday 03/09/2018: Bioventix: BVXP: Mkt Cap £168m: RNS Re: Date of Finals Well, the finals for the year ending 30/06/2018 will be revealed in early October which is fine enough in itself but I rather felt there may have been included a trading update as there has been in the last two years with the announcement of the finals. Still, I suppose no news is good news and we wait for the finals on 08/10/2018. Tuesday 04/09/2018: No RNS relevant to the stocks within the Voyager. Wednesday 05/09/2018: Somero: SOM: Mkt Cap £225m: RNS Interim Results Current Trading and Outlook The positive trading momentum experienced in North America has carried over into H2 2018 reflecting robust non-residential construction markets and a high-level of confidence by our customer base. We are pleased with these strong market conditions as well as in the broad customer interest across our product lines highlighting a wide-range of project activity in the market. Positive market conditions and healthy customer project backlogs give us confidence in delivering a solid performance in North America for the remainder of 2018. The momentum of trading activity in Europe is expected to carry over in H2 2018 and we expect sales in the territory will be broad-based, with a variety of countries contributing meaningfully to sales. We expect the market will continue to be driven by demand for replacement equipment and technology upgrades, as well as interest in new products. In China, we are aiming to gain increased traction in H2 2018 with the sales and marketing initiatives launched at the beginning of the year starting to deliver returns, in addition to positive contributions to market performance over the medium-term from the recently added local leadership. We continue to view China as a significant long-term opportunity for the business and one which we are committed to pursuing. In the Middle East, we expect to see a continuation of the H1 2018 performance for the rest of the year while in Latin America, we anticipate H2 2018 will improve due to the meaningful opportunities and solid level of activity across a variety of countries in this territory. In our Rest of World territories, we also anticipate that the solid H1 2018 performance will continue through the remainder of the year and are particularly pleased with the traction we are gaining in the India market. Overall, we see strong activity across our entire geographic footprint and strong interest across our product categories in H2 2018. With the broad-based opportunity for growth and the performance of the Company in the first half of 2018, the Board remains confident in delivering another year of profitable growth for our shareholders in line with current market expectations. My View: a very impressive and solid set of figures from SOM and also excellently presented in such a straightforward upfront way i.e. you don’t have to search to find out how performance sits against expectations, it’s included in the first three lines of the report. Look at this lovely line which appears close to the front of the report “Four of six territories grew compared to three in H1 2017 led by strong contribution from Europe and North America, which together represent 83% of total revenues”. So, let's go and chuck in a very nice SR of 97 (my first purchase was in the days before the SR system was available), a very undemanding valuation and a dividend of about 5%; all in all a great company that I am happy to have as one of my top half dozen holdings. Incidentally three of those top six by value holdings, SOM, BVXP & KWS are now riding for free as although they are significant positions, in “Dragons Den Style” I have taken the capital value of my original investment back. Thursday 06/09/2018: Dart Group: DTG: Mkt Cap £1.5b: RNS AGM Statement "The positive start to the financial year as reported in our Preliminary Results Statement of 12 July 2018 has continued, with Leisure Travel bookings growing slightly ahead of our 25% summer 2018 seat capacity increase and winter bookings satisfactory at this stage. Demand for both our flight-only offering and our higher margin package holiday product remains strong and package holiday customer numbers as a proportion of total departing customers have increased slightly for summer 2018. Progress continues to be made at Fowler Welch, our Distribution & Logistics business, which is currently trading in line with management's expectations." Overall the Board expects the Group to meet the recently upgraded market expectations of profit before foreign exchange revaluations and taxation for the year ending 31 March 2019 and will provide a further trading update on publication of its interim results on 15 November 2018." My View: nice and simple confirmation of the positive outlook reported in the final results issued on 12/07/2018. I have commented on Dart for years now and that simply because it’s been such a key element within the Voyager. When I originally bought DTG back in 2013 at about £2, I was very watchful as feared I may have missed the boat, or plane in this case, as in the previous 12 months prior to my purchase, the stock had appreciated by over 100%. The point I am making is that as with SOM, buying into quality at a reasonable price backed by positive momentum, good EBIT margin and attractive return on capital (ROCE & CROCI) is a very successful formula that was discovered probably way before I ever landed on planet earth. Friday 07/09/2018: No RNS relevant to the stocks within the Voyager. That’s it for this week’s log so it’s time to head off into the weekend for a trip to rather welcoming Doncaster to see the Hatters play. I will be meeting up with a few Hatters mates from around the UK and am already being bombarded with the “why are you not drinking” line, followed by “are you unwell”. I seem to get strange questioning looks when I simply say I am dry at the moment with those looks turning to disbelief when I tell them the money saved is being donated to charity: folk are strange. Oh, almost forgot & indeed should have included in the August log, I added a starter position in Beeks last Wednesday at 82p. On reading through the results last week I was impressed with the potential for good EBIT margin and growth, so, we will keep a look see. Have a great weekend and should the RNS news flow be sufficient, I will post another Voyager log next Friday. In the meantime, I am drafting the outline for a dynamic/evolving investment book that should appear on this site in the next few months. The book will have sections covering my investment journey from the early 90’s, mistakes along the way, learning points, making an investment plan, searching for gems, buying & selling, risk mitigation and a section covering what I consider to be the sensible or useful side of “reading the tea leaves/technical analysis”. As ever not advice but simply the development of a private investor who has enjoyed the good times as well as two of the most savage bear markets in living memory. Hope to catch you next week.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
October 2019
Categories |