GDHYP 41st purchase - final run-off poll

[Raptor]

Looks good to me. Firefox on PC no problems. Samsung 7" screen is good as well.

Raptor.

[Gengulphus]

Thanks for the comments. I've managed to work out how to make word-wrap happen before the gap between columns shrinks to nothing - it's actually the same technique as I was already using to prevent the right-aligned "Value" column running into the left-aligned "Sector" column, but I was a bit slow to realise that it would do both jobs! (For anyone facing a similar problem, it's to put a column of non-breaking spaces between each pair of columns you want to keep separate.)

With that done, I've fiddled with the text to make it more wrappable, and with the top-up indicator to avoid it wrapping in an unfortunate way. My latest effort is the following, and I think it's about as good as I can get it for the moment - but do tell me if anything goes badly wrong, short of using a screen / window that really is too narrow to be able to fit everything in.



Note this is still just an example, not a portfolio report, as the prices and portfolio composition were taken on different days.

Gengulphus

[Breelander]

Thanks for the comments. I've managed to work out how to make word-wrap happen before the gap between columns shrinks to nothing...

Impressive work! I know just how much hard work it takes to format the alignment as you have done.

One advantage of [table] is that we can select the table in a post, copy it and paste directly into Excel preserving columns and the alignment in each column (with a couple of caveats).

First caveat is that an extra blank row appears between each actual row. Second caveat only applies to the 'formatted titles' version, each column become two - the first has the title, the second the data. Both these artefacts can easily be edited out in Excel though, so still a useful way to copy a table if you'd like to work on it. It's far harder to import a [pre] table into Excel (lots of manual editing to turn it into a .csv is how I've done that previously).

[77ss]

One advantage of [table] is that we can select the table in a post, copy it and paste directly into Excel preserving columns and the alignment in each column

For me, this is a key feature. If a table is worth looking at seriously, this takes precedence over on-screen appearance (within limits of course). With all the extra advantages of being able to manipulate the data, add some of you own data, saving the table for future reference......

[midgesgalore]

Looks great on a 24 inch diagonal widescreen monitor

midgesgalore

[Gengulphus]

Must stop messing around with fine-tuning tables! So here goes with the purchase report for GDHYP's 41st purchase:

The purchase went through as expected on Wednesday December 7th, buying 32.837507 Greene King shares at 672.95p each, for a total of £220.98 spent on the shares themselves. Together with £1.50 commission and £1.11 stamp duty, this spent £223.59 from the Halifax ShareBuilder account, which was all the cash it had at the time I entered the order on the 6th (as usual, I've adjusted the commission and total expenditure figures down by 50p and slipped an extra 50p into the regular savings, because the '1/8th scale model' technique was designed for a commission of £1.50 and Halifax have since raised it to £2.00). More dividends have arrived since, including one late on the 6th that could have got into the purchase but didn't, so the portfolio already has a cash balance again.

Multiplying by 8 and doing my usual roundings, GDHYP's trade / corporate action history is now:


And its current state is:


Next expected stop is the 42nd purchase around the end of January, which will be done by the top-up procedure.

Gengulphus

[FarmerTom]

Thanks Mr. G.
That even looks good on my Kindle Fire HD 7(?) inch screen, with the inevitable scrolling of course.

The ' Company (+Top up OK, Top up vetoed)' bit confuses me, is there room down the bottom-right corner for a proper key?

Sorry, 'requirements-creep' is my middle name ,
Tom

[Gengulphus]

The ' Company (+Top up OK, Top up vetoed)' bit confuses me, is there room down the bottom-right corner for a proper key?

Not at all easy - there's room there, but it's got to fit in with the column structure of the table. That's not quite impossible, but my best attempt so far seems to trigger awkward word-wrapping in the column below "consisting of:", which ends up breaking up the top-up status key. Not an idea worth pursuing, I think: even if I can make it work full-screen on my laptop, it will go wrong on narrower screens/windows.

I have however realised I can easily make the 'Company (...)' bit look somewhat better with some more use of non-breaking spaces:


Hope that works better for you - but in any case, I really must stop fine-tuning this now and move on to more important matters!

Gengulphus

[FarmerTom]

Not at all easy - there's room there, but it's got to fit in with the column structure of the table.

Ah, OK, I hadn't appreciated that. Not a good thing to put into the table then.
Just as a newbe I wondered about the difference between e.g. :-

BP
+BP
-BP
VBP

but I found the meaning of the + & - & V variants (eventually) but not the case where the share appears without a symbol......

cheers,
Tom

[Gengulphus]

There are basically three 'top-up statuses' for a share:

* Ruled out because I've vetoed it, i.e. basically said that there's no way I can regard the share as currently being a HYP purchase. The usual reason is too low a yield - e.g. the two shares that were vetoed in this purchase were FirstGroup and Tesco, both on forecast yields below 1%. (I'm fussier about this for top-up selections than for nominations & voting selections like this one, because the former don't require any current human approval other than my non-veto.)

* Ruled out by my diversification rules - basically, more than 5% of the portfolio's invested capital and/or forecast income due to the company, or more than 10% of either due to the company's sector, or more than 20% of either due to some large groups of related sectors (e.g. financials).

* Not ruled out for either reason, making a top-up OK.

In the old pre-formatted typewriter-style tables, those three statuses were indicated by a character at the start of the line: "v" or "V" for vetoed, "-" for being ruled out by diversification, or "+" for OK. In the new style tables, they're indicated by "CompanyName", "CompanyName" and "+CompanyName" respectively - the first and last of those are indicated by the heading, the middle one is quite hard to express briefly enough to fit in the heading!

Gengulphus

[Gengulphus]

The story of GDHYP continues with its 42nd purchase in http://www.lemonfool.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2764 ...

Gengulphus