Crashed Computer Update

At the start of the month, my trusty old desktop presented me with a blank screen and a very weird bleeping noise. I consulted a techy friend and received the confirmation I suspected...a crashed hard drive! The computer is about 12 years old and well past its 'sell by' so time for a replacement.

Fortunately a member of the family had recently acquired a new laptop and I have therefore inherited the 'old' one which is a Dell Vostro running Windows 7.

Next step would be to transfer my files from the backup disks...unfortunately it turns out I have not been following the correct procedures and the disks appear blank!

The local computer shop had a look at my crashed hard drive and is unable to recover the files as the 'arm' seems to be broken. He says he can send it off to a specialist but may cost a 'few hundred £'....so that's the end of that!

I have therefore spent the past couple of weeks reconstructing some of my old files from scratch which has been rather time consuming however many of the basics are now back and updated. At the same time I have been finding my way around the new operating system and also the newer versions of Word and Excel so just about ready to resume with the blog.

The files are now backed up to Google Drive and I will probably also invest in a cheap external hard drive so I am hoping I will not be caught out again should the same thing happen to my laptop.

Apparently all hard drives will crash in time and I should have double checked my backup system worked before I really needed to use it for real...lesson learned.

Leave a comment below if you have any unfortunate computer experiences to share.

Dunedin Income Growth Trust - Final Results

I hold this UK income trust in my ISA portfolio.

They have recently issued results for the full year to 31st January 2017( link via Investegate).

I am pleased to see the figures for the year are an improvement on the previous year when NAV had fallen by 11.5% - NAV per share on a total return basis is up by a respectable 19.2%  - yet still underperforming against its benchmark the FTSE all-share index by 0.9% over the year.

Underlying income per share saw a modest increase to 12.55p.

The Board is recommending a final dividend of 3.975p, which will make a total of 11.7p for the full year (2016 - 11.4p) - an increase of 2.6%. As with last year, the uplift is a little disappointing and just about keeping pace with inflation. Dividend growth over the past 5 yrs is one of the weakest in the sector at an average of just 1.2% p.a. - maybe the trust needs a new name!

I am pleased to see dividend reserves have again increased to £25.7m (2016 £23.9m) and now represents 149% of dividends paid out over the past 12 months.

Ongoing charges for the trust are 0.68% (2016 0.74%) - around the average for the UK income sector.

3 Yr Performance -v- Vanguard Equity Income
(click to enlarge)

At the current share price of  255p, the trust yields a handy 4.5% but share price appreciation has been below par for the past couple of years. One of my Vanguard index funds I use as a benchmark to evaluate my collective investment is their UK Equity Income Fund which I updated last month. As can be seen from the chart, the Dunedin trust does not compare too well over the past 3 years.

I will retain my ISA holding for the time being for the income but without any real enthusiasm. This seems to offer yet another example of passive index funds outperforming the managed investment trust. My strategy transition in 2015 towards lower cost index funds is looking increasingly a good move

As ever, please DYOR.

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Unfortunately my computer crashed at the weekend and it looks terminal so normal service will be resumed as soon as I have a replacement.........  :-(