reply to Gengulphus

[Arborbridge]

Written as the previous thread was being locked:

I suspect that the answer is that you got the idea that sorting shares by dividend yield was involved from some posters about using it as part of their own HYP share selection process and/or recommending its use by others.

Or to be fair to Alaric, he might well have found the idea in the original writings of Pyad because that was the method described by him. It is the guidelines here which have moved away from the original scheme so are to the extent are "not HYP" so to speak. They've been sanitised, I suspect.

Well, it's actually TMF's 2008 HYP Practical guidance that first did that in any formally-written-down form: they don't require the share selection method to include sorting by dividend yield any more than this new TLF HYP Practical guidance (or any of the intervening versions of HYP Practical guidance) does. Though I'd say "expanded to include more than just the original scheme" rather than "moved away from the original scheme", as using the original scheme remains entirely within the guidelines: the point I'm making is only that the guidance doesn't require it.

Gengulphus

Well, perhaps I'm wrong. Have you checked the original Pyad articles? I am of the opinion that he wrote about listing the shares in descending order and going down the list until one find a new sector. I would have thought that was written before 2008.
In any case, as regards "HYP" in my view, it's Pyad's sayings on the matter which are important rather than guidelines which interpret it. Naturally, any board can impose whatever the administrators want, but that doesn't mean those guidelines are following HYP, only their bowdlerised or compromise version of it for the sake of the board's regulation.


Arb.

[Clariman]

Moderator Message:
I will allow one reply from Gengulphus if he wishes and will then lock the thread. Any replies from anyone else are likely to be deleted, so we don't continue this discussion forever. Thanks

C

[Arborbridge]

Moderator Message:
I will allow one reply from Gengulphus if he wishes and will then lock the thread. Any replies from anyone else are likely to be deleted, so we don't continue this discussion forever. Thanks

C

thank you. I know I was pushing my luck but had that post on my machine ready to go: I appreciate your forbearance

[Gengulphus]

Written as the previous thread was being locked:

Or to be fair to Alaric, he might well have found the idea in the original writings of Pyad because that was the method described by him. It is the guidelines here which have moved away from the original scheme so are to the extent are "not HYP" so to speak. They've been sanitised, I suspect.

Well, it's actually TMF's 2008 HYP Practical guidance that first did that in any formally-written-down form: they don't require the share selection method to include sorting by dividend yield any more than this new TLF HYP Practical guidance (or any of the intervening versions of HYP Practical guidance) does. Though I'd say "expanded to include more than just the original scheme" rather than "moved away from the original scheme", as using the original scheme remains entirely within the guidelines: the point I'm making is only that the guidance doesn't require it.

Well, perhaps I'm wrong. Have you checked the original Pyad articles? I am of the opinion that he wrote about listing the shares in descending order and going down the list until one find a new sector. I would have thought that was written before 2008.

Yes, I have and yes, I agree that's the method pyad used in his original articles - a relevant quote from https://web.archive.org/web/20140219210 ... 01106c.htm is:

Whatever the money available, even very large sums, no more than about 15 shares are necessary to take strip out the excessive risk of too few shares. Stick to FTSE 100 companies and spread the holdings around sectors. I would do it by ranking the shares in the index by descending yield, then work down the list choosing one from each sector, but doing a bit of research on each potential candidate. You don't want excessive debt, for example. Another useful clue is to pick only those companies that have increased dividends regularly over the last few years.

At present yield levels it will be quite simple to achieve a starting yield of 4-5% on the portfolio. Having chosen your shares, simply buy and hold forever. Do not be tempted to meddle, and try not to let press comment on your companies influence you. Do not worry about the fluctuations in the underlying capital value of your shares that are certain to occur.

But the point I was making is that the expansion away from pyad's original scheme is not something that's been done "here" (on TLF in 2020), but on TMF in 2008 as far as formally writing it down is concerned, and informally much earlier than that - just a few months after pyad's original articles according to my memory (which admittedly I cannot back up with evidence - evidence might exist in the Wayback Machine archive, but if so, finding it is something that has so far defeated my abilities).

In any case, as regards "HYP" in my view, it's Pyad's sayings on the matter which are important rather than guidelines which interpret it. Naturally, any board can impose whatever the administrators want, but that doesn't mean those guidelines are following HYP, only their bowdlerised or compromise version of it for the sake of the board's regulation.

Sorry, but "a HYP portfolio run according to Pyad's sayings about HYPs" is fraught with problems as a definition of a subject area - either one that defines the full scope of the board (i.e. what's allowed at all on HYP Practical) or one that defines a particular subject among others on the board (e.g. if someone were to actually define the term "pyadic HYP" so often used on HYP Practical). He's said lots of things about HYPs over the years, some a lot more obscure and/or short of evidence than others (e.g. as mentioned in the previous thread, the only evidence I currently have for pyad having suggested a "sell if a company fails to increase its dividend" selling policy in the early days of HYP is my own memory), with various gradations from being an inviolable rule down to being a not-very-strong recommendation, and the things he's said have shifted somewhat on that scale and not been all that consistent with each other. As a result, as a definition of the full scope of the board, it would be unworkable for the moderators, and even as the definition of a term such as "pyadic HYP" for use on the board, it would be a recipe for endless arguments about which of pyad's sayings count and which takes precedence when they conflict...

I'm not saying that having a HYP Practical definition for "pyadic HYP" on HYP Practical is a bad idea, by the way - on the contrary, I think it would be a good idea if someone (not me!) is willing to take on the job. I've often been irritated by people talking about "pyadic HYPs", especially when it seems clear to me that they're talking at cross purposes because they have different meanings for the term in mind! I'm just saying that "a HYP portfolio run according to Pyad's sayings about HYPs" isn't workable as such a definition: it would need a fair amount of work to get one agreed that was acceptable to everybody who runs such a HYP - probably a similar amount of work to what has been needed to produce the new HYP Practical guidance, probably resulting in a definition of broadly similar size to that guidance.

Incidentally, no version of the HYP Practical guidance has tried to interpret pyad's sayings or to rewrite them in a "sanitised" or "bowdlerised" form. Their objective for the board has always been to cover a range of share investment strategies that includes pyad's HYP strategy but also others with similar characteristics, not to decide what pyad's sayings mean or clean them up. "Compromise version" is reasonably accurate though: there was a compromise involved in deciding just how widely the range of strategies covered should be expanded, between not limiting the board's readership too much by making the range too narrow on the one hand, and having too many heated arguments between investors at opposite ends of a wide range on the other - and reducing demands on the moderators on the third hand... ;-) Details of the exact compromise made have shifted between the various versions of the guidance, but I think it's remained broadly in the same position.

Gengulphus