Stonge wrote:Board title should be something like 'Income Share Portfolios using Share Dividends as an alternative to an annuity'
Simple.
No, sorry, it isn't simple. You and Mel have already found one obvious thing wrong with it, namely that it's way too long to be a board title, by moving on to considering it instead as a sub-title. (Even TMF's "High Yield - HYP Practical" board title was really a bit too long - look at how often people just called it "the HYP Practical board"...)
I see other things wrong with it, but before dealing with them, I'll take up your suggestion of sprucing it up. That's because I'm going to want to add some extra elements to fix the problems I see with it, and sub-titles also mustn't be too long. So let's try first to shorten it... There's no need to say "Share" twice, and there's some duplication between "Income" and "as an alternative to an annuity". Furthermore, the "as an alternative to an annuity" is on very dubious ground: contrary to popular belief on the board, pyad's original articles about the strategy didn't mention annuities, and actually mentioned guaranteed income bonds as the insurance company product that might be replaced, and indeed a HYP's investment characteristics are closer to those of a guaranteed income bond than to those of an annuity (for example, a risk of damaging capital rather than a certainty of totally destroying it).
The other thing wrong with "as an alternative to an annuity" is that it contains an implicit pre-judgement that a HYP strategy is only suitable in circumstances where you might consider using an annuity. There are indeed people around who believe that or something close to it, but there are also those (like me) who believe it's also useful in other circumstances. And the difference between those positions is very much one of what strategies are and aren't good ones - i.e. basically a strategic argument of precisely the type that the TMF High Yield - HYP Practical board was set up to allow people to escape from! Basically, the important thing about a HYP from the practical point of view is that it's aimed at producing dividend income: what the investor wants that income for and what they regard as the alternatives to the HYP are strategic matters.
So I would keep "Income" and drop "as an alternative to an annuity". With a bit of further editing to reflect my comments in the last paragraph, I get to 'Share Portfolios aimed at getting Dividend Income'. On to the things I see as wrong with it... It fails to mention diversification, dividend safety, the low level of trading and the fully-invested aspects of the TMF definition. Of those, I think the fully-invested aspect could probably be omitted - it's almost implied by the others - and the others could be fitted into the sub-title with a few extra words: 'Diversified, Little-Traded Share Portfolios aimed at getting Sustainable Dividend Income'.
That's the "HYP" part of the board's definition dealt with, though the sub-title is getting a bit long. There's still the "Practical" part to be dealt with - that sub-title on its own will invite
all discussion about such portfolios, and I think "HYP Practical" in the title is a bit too cryptic to counteract that invitation. My feeling is that that's best addressed by modifying both the title and the sub-title, to produce something like:
Running HYPs in PracticeHYPs are Diversified, Little-Traded Share Portfolios aimed at getting Sustainable Dividend Income
I'm not claiming that's a perfect description of the topic, but I think it's reasonably close. And it could almost certainly do with some more polishing - in particular, the sub-title is a bit long.
But it's as far as I'm going to try to take it at present, because it's ignoring the elephant in the room: what the board's topic should be. I think it's a decent first pass at a solution if the board's topic is the same as that of the TMF High Yield - HYP Practical board, but there are clearly unresolved differences of opinion about that - and as I've said before, I don't think we can get resolution on that until we have polls to allow us to assess opinion and interest in using the resulting board.
Gengulphus