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Persimmon pursued

Created:
15 August 2008
Written by:
Bernard Jones

TUESDAY 8 JULY: Choosing a dog stock

With Eunice out shopping (again) I return to my task with Nasdog. I fill the bucket with marked tennis balls and hurl them down the garden as far as I can. Nasdog leaps after them and jumps into and out of bushes before finally returning with one. Will it be banks? Construction or property? However, the damn dog now seems to be a little possessive of his chosen ball, and doesn't want to let me have it. He thinks it is more fun to pretend to drop it, but change his mind at the last minute and have me chase him.

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Finally, I get a grip on the saliva-covered object and gently extricate it from his growling mouth. What's written on it? Slazenger, and nothing else. On closer inspection, this isn't one of my balls anyway. Probably one of the bloody O'Riordan's. So I pretend to throw it back in the bushes, and the dog falls for it, sprinting back like a great black rubbery bundle to the bottom of the garden. This time he does retrieve one of my balls. The sector is chemicals. Well, that's a bit uninspiring. I repeat the task of labelling the balls, but this time with each carrying the name of a stock within the chemical sector.

What does Nasdog bring back? Zotefoams. I'd never even heard of it. I look the firm up on its website: 'A world leader in cross-linked block foams.' I'm none the wiser, quite honestly. Now I'm in a bit of a quandary. I've got £2,000 to invest, but I'm not sure that Zotefoams is really going to set the stock market firmament ablaze. A bit of research shows that it has a market cap of less than £30m, and a lowish PE of under 10. The shares have been falling all year, but there is a 6 per cent dividend yield and little debt. Still, if this year in the stock market has taught me one thing, it is that my own judgment has not beaten the market. Perhaps the dog's judgment will serve me better. So I go online, and spend my hard-earned cash on Zotefoams shares at 82p.

WEDNESDAY 9 JULY: Insider tip

K.P. Sharma is looking a little glum as the rest of us arrive for share club. Harry immediately starts needling him, a tactic that he has down to a fine art.

"How are those lovely HBOS nil paid shares doing, then?" he asks. "Have you doubled your money yet?"

"No," K.P. replied "I sold yesterday at a 40 per cent loss when it was clear that there was not going to be a bounce."

"That kind of thing is all very speculative, isn't it?" said Martin Gale, a pot never too proud to call the kettle black. "I've got a real bargain. I borrowed some more money from my sister and bought three thousand shares in Persimmon at 217p. Her lodger's sister in law's boyfriend works for them as a plasterer, or did until they made him redundant in 2006. He says they are really cheap."

"Another quality insider tip from boardroom sources," murmured Chantelle, as she dried glasses behind the bar.

THURSDAY 10 JULY: Blazing Comet

Drove back to Dot's yet again, to take her to buy a new television. We arrive at the local Comet warehouse, where every wall is lined with gigantic TV screens. The only snag is that every single one is tuned to the same channel. It is presumably a David Attenborough programme, because shambling across the screen is an androgynous giggling yeti, apparently dressed by Oxfam.

"What on earth is it?" Dot asks.

"That's Russell Brand," the assistant explains.

"Oh. Same make as my old kettle," she nods. "They have branched out, haven't they? I knew they did toasters."

"No Mum, you're thinking of Russell Hobbs," I say, asking the assistant if we could find a different channel. Eventually we got my mother down away from the 40" widescreen monsters to something in keeping with her style.

"These are all plastic, though," Dot complains. "Don't they have one in wood? My first telly was made of wood. And it only cost thirty guineas. I mean, look at the price of these!"

"It also only had a ten inch screen, and the sound was as crackly as a reverse-charge call from New Guinea," I say.

"Well, I'll only buy a British one," she says.

The assistant looked dubious, but consults a manager who comes over. There had used to be several TV plants in Wales, he says, but most of the work had now gone to Eastern Europe. The JVC plant in Scotland and the Philips plant in the North East had closed too, he admits. "What about Belgium? We've got a portable TV made in Belgium. Would that do?" he asks.

Eventually we settled on a robust-looking flat-screen Panasonic for £200, made in Taiwan. Dot agrees only after I whisper in her ear that Taiwan is a new eco town in mid-Wales.

MORE FROM THE SAGE OF SUBURBIA...

Read more of Bernard's musings at his IC home page.

Write to him at bernard.jones@ft.com

You can buy the two Bernard Jones books at a discount in the IC bookstore.

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