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EPICs and the use (Or not) of them

Formerly "Lemon Fool - Improve the Recipe" repurposed as Room 102 (see above).
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Re: EPICs and the use (Or not) of them

#438424

Postby mc2fool » August 30th, 2021, 1:43 pm

richfool wrote:6. The irony of Dod's posts about EPIC's on the thread: "Candidates for adding to IT portfolio" thread, was that the full names of the trusts had already been given further up the thread, had he bothered to read the preceding posts. Instead, he just jumped in with his comment about tickers: "Talking in code again. Enjoy!".

Dod's "Talking in code again. Enjoy!" post immediately followed your post mentioning SMIT.

So where exactly further up the thread was the full name of SMIT given? Of course it wasn't, 'cos there is no SMIT! :lol: Can he just assume it was a typo and know that you weren't referring to yet another alternative?

Your post also quoted another post that referred to HDIV, BIPS, NCYF, SMIF and IPE & CMHY (ok, no names but at least some explanation for those last two). So, how many of those have their full names already given further up the thread?

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Re: EPICs and the use (Or not) of them

#438434

Postby Arborbridge » August 30th, 2021, 3:07 pm

uspaul666 wrote:It may seem bizarre but when I think about a company in or for my HYP, I usually refer to it in my mind by epic rather than the company name, indeed I am sometimes surprised to hear or read the fully company name. This was the case when I worked in investment banks too.
A possible technical solution would be to ask the site devs if they could automatically spot epic codes and replace it with a link or a borderless tiny pop up showing the full name on hover?


I've grown this way in Instagram. I get to know people by their instanames and have to think hard to recall who they really are. :roll:

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Re: EPICs and the use (Or not) of them

#438446

Postby richfool » August 30th, 2021, 4:39 pm

mc2fool wrote:
richfool wrote:6. The irony of Dod's posts about EPIC's on the thread: "Candidates for adding to IT portfolio" thread, was that the full names of the trusts had already been given further up the thread, had he bothered to read the preceding posts. Instead, he just jumped in with his comment about tickers: "Talking in code again. Enjoy!".

Dod's "Talking in code again. Enjoy!" post immediately followed your post mentioning SMIT.

So where exactly further up the thread was the full name of SMIT given? Of course it wasn't, 'cos there is no SMIT! :lol: Can he just assume it was a typo and know that you weren't referring to yet another alternative?

Your post also quoted another post that referred to HDIV, BIPS, NCYF, SMIF and IPE & CMHY (ok, no names but at least some explanation for those last two). So, how many of those have their full names already given further up the thread?


My post was actually a question about: "Are you holders of these bond/fixed interest investments not concerned that their SP's will fall, if interest rates rise, or indeed when talk of tapering arises, (such as is anticipated at Jackson Hole)?"...... HDIV and SMIF, were only relevant in that they were within the quote from a previous post, though, both had been identified/named in earlier posts (see below). Also, my quote and question had been directed at Newroad.

Several other EPIC's/tickers were listed here, (post #403056), in that same thread, where incidentally MTE's full name got a full mention:
Ollydrod wrote:A couple of observations and some more 'possibles' for consideration:

You've no pure-play smaller companies exposure (which may of course be deliberate) but I'd expect these to continue to do well as the global economy recovers. If you want a European slant, what about Montanaro European Smaller Companies (MTE) or, if you want more of a yield, European Assets (EAT) as dundass666 suggests? Plenty of good options in the UK too - my holdings in Henderson Smaller (HSL), Rights and Issues (RII) and Herald (HRI) have all done well YTD, but relatively low yields (in fact zero for HRI).

You've also got no property. I suspect a lot of the traditional REITs are value-traps at present, but TR Property (TRY) has an excellent track record, with lots of European exposure and is primarily in securities rather than physical assets which nominally allows it to be much fleeter of foot than some of its competitors. Another alternative might be Tritax Eurobox (BOXE/EBOX) which stands to benefit from long-term e-commerce trends (though beware the punchy fees).

You've no real bond exposure either. Henderson Diversified Income (HDIV) is on a nice discount at the moment and pays around 5%. I also like TwentyFour Select Monthly Income (SMIF) which may have extra appeal if you're relying on dividend income.

The other area to look at IMO is Infrastructure. Lots of these on punchy premia, but Ecofin Global Utilities & Infrastructure (EGL) is more or less at par and has done very well for me over the last couple of years. Like TRY it invests primarily in securities, not physical assets. I suspect it flies somewhat under the radar being in the tiny 'Infrastructure Securities' AIC sector, rather than in 'Infrastructure' with 3i, HICL, GCP etc. Worth a look.

- OllyDrod

And quoted in another post (#435339):
OllyDrodd wrote:
You've no real bond exposure either. Henderson Diversified Income (HDIV) is on a nice discount at the moment and pays around 5%. I also like TwentyFour Select Monthly Income (SMIF) which may have extra appeal if you're relying on dividend income.


My reference to SMIT was a typo which I hope anyone following the thread would have worked out, as it was immediately following and responding to the quote of a previous post listing SMIF and HDIV., and as said, the comment about SMIT/SMIF was quite incidental to the actual question I was posing in my post. Newroad then kindly sought to answer my question in amongst all the "EPIC" posts.

I reiterate, I think of and remember most trusts by their tickers, I often don't know their full titles, without having to look them up myself; and in this instance, the question that had been posed was about bonds and fixed interest investments generally.

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Re: EPICs and the use (Or not) of them

#438447

Postby tjh290633 » August 30th, 2021, 4:45 pm

I support Dod in his effort to remove ambiguities in the use of EPICs as the sole reference to companies.

I have in mind companies which change their EPIC for one reason or another. Recently Reckitt Benckiser changed from RB. to RKT. Others change the company name and the EPIC with it. Dixons is one such, being DSGI when I was invested in it. Then another company is formed and takes on the old EPIC. Which do you then mean?

I try to follow the principle of using the company name followed by the EPIC when first mentioned in a post or thread, e.g. AstraZeneca (AZN), formerly Zeneca (ZEN) or BHP (BHP), formerly BHP-Billiton (BLT) as examples. In the realm of ITs, F&C was FRCL and recently became FCIT.

It's not a bad habit to get into.

TJH

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Re: EPICs and the use (Or not) of them

#438450

Postby mc2fool » August 30th, 2021, 4:57 pm

richfool wrote:
mc2fool wrote:
richfool wrote:6. The irony of Dod's posts about EPIC's on the thread: "Candidates for adding to IT portfolio" thread, was that the full names of the trusts had already been given further up the thread, had he bothered to read the preceding posts. Instead, he just jumped in with his comment about tickers: "Talking in code again. Enjoy!".

Dod's "Talking in code again. Enjoy!" post immediately followed your post mentioning SMIT.

So where exactly further up the thread was the full name of SMIT given? Of course it wasn't, 'cos there is no SMIT! :lol: Can he just assume it was a typo and know that you weren't referring to yet another alternative?

Your post also quoted another post that referred to HDIV, BIPS, NCYF, SMIF and IPE & CMHY (ok, no names but at least some explanation for those last two). So, how many of those have their full names already given further up the thread?


My post was actually a question about: "Are you holders of these bond/fixed interest investments not concerned that their SP's will fall, if interest rates rise, or indeed when talk of tapering arises, (such as is anticipated at Jackson Hole)?"...... HDIV and SMIF, were only relevant in that they were within the quote from a previous post, though, both had been identified/named in earlier posts (see below). Also, my quote and question had been directed at Newroad.

Several other EPIC's/tickers were listed here, (post #403056), in that same thread, where incidentally MTE's full name got a full mention:
Ollydrod wrote:A couple of observations and some more 'possibles' for consideration:

You've no pure-play smaller companies exposure (which may of course be deliberate) but I'd expect these to continue to do well as the global economy recovers. If you want a European slant, what about Montanaro European Smaller Companies (MTE) or, if you want more of a yield, European Assets (EAT) as dundass666 suggests? Plenty of good options in the UK too - my holdings in Henderson Smaller (HSL), Rights and Issues (RII) and Herald (HRI) have all done well YTD, but relatively low yields (in fact zero for HRI).

You've also got no property. I suspect a lot of the traditional REITs are value-traps at present, but TR Property (TRY) has an excellent track record, with lots of European exposure and is primarily in securities rather than physical assets which nominally allows it to be much fleeter of foot than some of its competitors. Another alternative might be Tritax Eurobox (BOXE/EBOX) which stands to benefit from long-term e-commerce trends (though beware the punchy fees).

You've no real bond exposure either. Henderson Diversified Income (HDIV) is on a nice discount at the moment and pays around 5%. I also like TwentyFour Select Monthly Income (SMIF) which may have extra appeal if you're relying on dividend income.

The other area to look at IMO is Infrastructure. Lots of these on punchy premia, but Ecofin Global Utilities & Infrastructure (EGL) is more or less at par and has done very well for me over the last couple of years. Like TRY it invests primarily in securities, not physical assets. I suspect it flies somewhat under the radar being in the tiny 'Infrastructure Securities' AIC sector, rather than in 'Infrastructure' with 3i, HICL, GCP etc. Worth a look.

- OllyDrod

And quoted in another post (#435339):
OllyDrodd wrote:
You've no real bond exposure either. Henderson Diversified Income (HDIV) is on a nice discount at the moment and pays around 5%. I also like TwentyFour Select Monthly Income (SMIF) which may have extra appeal if you're relying on dividend income.


My reference to SMIT was a typo which I hope anyone following the thread would have worked out, as it was immediately following and responding to the quote of a previous post listing SMIF and HDIV., and as said, the comment about SMIT/SMIF was quite incidental to the actual question I was posing in my post. Newroad then kindly sought to answer my question in amongst all the "EPIC" posts.

My comment wasn't about what your post was actually about, nor about other EPICs that weren't in your post but rather about the seven EPICs that were in your post (inc. the quoted ones from Newroad) -- being the post immediately before Dod's "Talking in code again. Enjoy!" -- of which one was a typo and only two had had their full names expounded already.

So, sorry, but your claim that the full names of the trusts had already been given further up the thread, had he bothered to read the preceding posts. Instead, he just jumped in with his comment about tickers: "Talking in code again. Enjoy!", just isn't true.

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Re: EPICs and the use (Or not) of them

#438465

Postby BobbyD » August 30th, 2021, 5:57 pm

mc2fool wrote:Talk of "simple browser solutions" miss the point. This is about consideration. It's like holding the door open for someone, and for the vast majority of cases only takes a second or two, if that. It's something courteous for minuscule effort.

I support the idea, at least for the first mention of a company/IT/ETF/etc in a thread.


It's more akin to standing in a self opening door on the off chance that somebody walking behind you doesn't know how self-opening doors work. There are cases where this would obviously be a good idea, but as a rule for all mentions of all companies it is an unnecessary inconvenience for all users to account for the odd occassion when somebody browsing an investment board doesn't know that VOD means Vodafone. It's not just the unnecessary typing and storage, but for many using the full name will actually require 'translating' from the mental shorthand which they use to refer to the company internally. And again I'll ask how this is supposed to work. If you type 'Entire and Convoluted Name Holdings Ltd (ECH)' on page one of a thread is it still good on page two? page five? page seven? It appears that the company whose EPIC was objected to was actually named in full further up thread, so do you need to type 'Entire and Convoluted Name Holdings Ltd (ECH)' in every post which refers to the company? Even if it is mentioned in every post in a 365 page thread? Common sense would appear to be a much better and more workable guide.

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Re: EPICs and the use (Or not) of them

#438498

Postby Gengulphus » August 30th, 2021, 8:38 pm

Dod101 wrote:Could I suggest that we make it a convention of these Boards that EPICs (or the use of the London Stock Exchange codes for shares) are only used after the full name for a particular security has been used the first time? So for example, if a poster refers to Scottish Investment Trust, he/she adds (SCIN) after the name and thereafter may use the SCIN reference. ...

I agree that's a good convention, at least when it's not a routinely-discussed share on the board concerned (*), and quite a few of us do try to adhere to it. But I would suggest that it should also be a convention that when someone doesn't adhere to it, one's reaction should preferably be helpful and definitely not one that disrupts the discussion. E.g. if someone says "I'm considering an investment in DIGS - what do people think?", and you look the EPIC up (**) and decide that you do want to reply about the company, I'd suggest that it would be appropriate and helpful by quote their post with a clarification added in square brackets (a fairly standard convention in the press for marking such clarifications), like so:

I'm considering an investment in DIGS [GCP Student Living plc] - what do people think?

and then reply about the company. That may save others from having to look it up as well, and probably won't cause any disruption of whatever discussion occurs in the thread - whereas making any sort of fuss about it in the thread is liable to produce an extended debate along the lines of this thread and quite possibly kill off any discussion of the company by swamping it... It is of course best if the original poster supplies the company name in the first place, but making a fuss about it in the thread is far too likely to prove a cure that's worse than the disease.

Other options include just using the 'company name (EPIC)' convention in your reply and hoping people absorb the convention by example, sending a PM to the poster asking them gently to adhere to the convention, or completely ignoring the post concerned. Do bear in mind that even those who try to adhere to the convention will sometimes inadvertently fail to do so, so displaying any sort of irritation with the poster concerned is liable to turn things confrontational that need not have been.

And to be clear, I only agree that it's a good convention for the TLF site - if anyone is thinking of it as a specific addition to the site rules, I'm definitely not in favour of that! It's sort-of there already, as a particular case of being "respectful, understanding and helpful to other posters", since saving oneself the job of typing a company name one already knows at the expense of many readers needing to look up an EPIC values one's own time much more highly than the time of one's readers - hardly either respectful or helpful. But making it a specific rule, infractions of which moderators are expected to deal with, would make very poor use of volunteer moderators' time...

(*) E.g. on the HYP board, I think it's perfectly reasonable to use 'usual suspect' EPICs such as AZN, BLND, HSBA, NG., RDSB, RIO, ULVR, etc, without giving the company names (especially when giving a HYP portfolio listing where adding maybe a couple of dozen company names could take a good deal of time and make the listing excessively wide on mobile phone displays), because they're so frequently discussed that the vast majority of the board's readers can be expected to know them. When bringing up a less usual company, though, the convention should be used - and it should be used all the time on boards that less frequently discuss the companies concerned. E.g. on the Investment Trusts & Unit Trusts board, those companies should IMHO be named on the occasions when they do get discussed (as for example probably happened when the original Unilever 'unification' proposal threatened to remove the company from the FTSE indices, which would have had a noticeable effect on some investment & unit trusts' portfolios).

(**) It's one I've encountered in the past, and I remembered that the EPIC exists but isn't an abbreviation of the company name - but I had to look up the company name for this post!

Gengulphus

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Re: EPICs and the use (Or not) of them

#438518

Postby onthemove » August 30th, 2021, 10:14 pm

Dod101 wrote:Could I suggest that we make it a convention of these Boards that EPICs (or the use of the London Stock Exchange codes for shares) are only used after the full name for a particular security has been used the first time? So for example, if a poster refers to Scottish Investment Trust, he/she adds (SCIN) after the name and thereafter may use the SCIN reference. I know I have posted as a bitter lemon on this topic but I am being perfectly serious. Some of us at least, do not carry all of these codes in our heads, and so, especially if we get an unusual code we can sometimes have no idea what the poster is referring to.

That means a lot of research to get the answer and sometimes that means that the point is lost.

Dod


In addition to the other replies, I'll just add that what you describe is just one specific example of a more general and well recognised issue for any who creates text or speech (journalists, book authors, script writers, play writers, speech writers, etc).

The more general issue is about what level of technical / specialist words to use. And the choice is complex.

For example, some people may deliberately choose technical or specialist words that they know their readers won't understand, purely to give themselves an air of 'authority' - to position themselves as being more expert. Though in those cases, typically the writer won't make comprehension of the whole text contingent on the reader understanding those technical words.

More generally though, the writer (whether they realise it or not) has to make a judgement call as to what level of technical / specialist words the target audience will understand.

And there's no right or wrong answer - it's always a judgement call on the author, taking into account their intended audience.

Just consider how if you were to take a typical newspaper article now, after a year and a half of pandemic reporting, many terms that would have been considered specialist at the beginning of the pandemic with their use always previously necessitating an explanation for a general audience, are now being treated as likely known by most people. This is just an example of how specialist and technical words can enter common usage and then be assumed understood to non-specialists.

In the case of tickers on a board dedicated to investing, where the same stocks and tickers come up frequently, I'd suggest it would often be reasonable to just go straight to using the ticker without further explanation, if the ticker is a commonly used on the boards, or at least the board in question at the time, or fairly obvious from the context.

I think people should only really need to clarify if it's an unusual ticker that isn't (as of yet) oft used on the board in question or the boards in general.

And it should be really up to the author to make the judgement - a good author should be thinking about their audience, and adapting their vocabulary to suit that audience.

To be honest, I think most use of tickers on these boards works quite well. If someone is aware that a ticker has been used previously quite often on different threads on the same board, then it would seem a bit OTT (that's "over the top" :) ) to have to spell it out at the first use in every new thread.

IME (that's "in my experience" :) ) , it's not often that someone uses an unfamiliar ticker (for anyone unfamiliar, a "ticker" or "EPIC" is a character code that is used to identify a stock listing on a stock market instead of the full company name :) ) - that's to say one that doesn't crop up regularly on these boards - and I can't help think most of the time when someone does use an unfamiliar ticker, it's probably a new poster who's trying to fit in with the styles as they observe it, but perhaps don't realise that the ticker they're bringing to the party isn't one regulars will be familiar with.

I think there are perhaps also one or two who throw around obscure tickers to deliberately try to appear 'clever', but I don't think that happens often.

In either case though, someone will usually then ask for clarification which would then be visible to everyone.

If someone new comes along then the issue isn't only the tickers, it's the more general language used as well. A newbie might not understand what ex-dividend is, but we don't spell it out every time we refer to it. We don't explain 'total return', 'dividend yield' or 'capital gain' each time we use them, but to someone not familiar with the world of shares, these might be words they aren't familiar with. And so on.

In essence the boards, and to an extent each individual board, will naturally settle to a level common understanding of, and use of, language. It's what happens in every situation where language is used. Whether it's colleagues in a workplace, family at home, etc. All groups ultimately and most of the time without realising it, settle on a common form of language when communicating in that group - and the same individual could be in different groups and will (again often without even consciously realising it) adapt their speech to the specific group at the specific time.

It's what naturally happens with language.

And imv, I think we should just let that natural process play out, since most of the time, most of us know the tickers - or other financial technical terms - that contributors use.

And the few times that someone does use a ticker, or other technical term that people aren't familiar with, someone familiar with the board and recognising that it isn't a commonly recognised thing, will usually pipe up and ask the person using it for clarification.

And then if it becomes used regularly, it then will eventually become part of the recognised vocabulary that can be assumed to be understood / recognised without the need for clarification each time.

In other words - it's a fluid thing... not just relating to tickers, but to other technical words as well... imv (that's "in my view" :) ) I don't really see a big problem in this respect on these boards... language is evolving all the time, and I don't think it's posing any major problem... it seems to be evolving just as language always has done and always will do.

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Re: EPICs and the use (Or not) of them

#438535

Postby BobbyD » August 31st, 2021, 1:13 am

onthemove wrote:If someone new comes along then the issue isn't only the tickers, it's the more general language used as well. A newbie might not understand what ex-dividend is, but we don't spell it out every time we refer to it. We don't explain 'total return', 'dividend yield' or 'capital gain' each time we use them, but to someone not familiar with the world of shares, these might be words they aren't familiar with. And so on.


Perhaps a prominent list of resources which makes these things easier to uncover and understand might be a better solution than an awkward one size fits all rule?

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Re: EPICs and the use (Or not) of them

#438559

Postby richfool » August 31st, 2021, 8:33 am

mc2fool wrote:Talk of "simple browser solutions" miss the point. This is about consideration. It's like holding the door open for someone, and for the vast majority of cases only takes a second or two, if that. It's something courteous for minuscule effort.

I support the idea, at least for the first mention of a company/IT/ETF/etc in a thread.

Do you mean like here (OP)?

viewtopic.php?f=54&t=29324&hilit=hfel

or here (my post #428077 halfway down the page and subsequent responses):

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13633&start=20

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Re: EPICs and the use (Or not) of them

#438593

Postby Dod101 » August 31st, 2021, 10:06 am

richfool wrote:
mc2fool wrote:Talk of "simple browser solutions" miss the point. This is about consideration. It's like holding the door open for someone, and for the vast majority of cases only takes a second or two, if that. It's something courteous for minuscule effort.

I support the idea, at least for the first mention of a company/IT/ETF/etc in a thread.

Do you mean like here (OP)?

viewtopic.php?f=54&t=29324&hilit=hfel

or here (my post #428077 halfway down the page and subsequent responses):

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13633&start=20


I am almost sorry I started this thread. The sort of sniping we are now getting is unhelpful to say the least and I think it is surely obvious that I was thinking mostly about shares and their EPICs that are not often mentioned on these Boards. HFEL, for instance, is fairly well known I would have thought, as is RDSB, HSBA and the like. What mc2fool has said is pretty much my point; it is simply being helpful and courteous to others to spell out an alphabet of letters which refer to some share which is not often mentioned here, JAGI and MTE being two examples off the top of my head.

Dod

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Re: EPICs and the use (Or not) of them

#438612

Postby richfool » August 31st, 2021, 11:20 am

Dod101 wrote:I am almost sorry I started this thread. The sort of sniping we are now getting is unhelpful to say the least and I think it is surely obvious that I was thinking mostly about shares and their EPICs that are not often mentioned on these Boards. HFEL, for instance, is fairly well known I would have thought, as is RDSB, HSBA and the like. What mc2fool has said is pretty much my point; it is simply being helpful and courteous to others to spell out an alphabet of letters which refer to some share which is not often mentioned here, JAGI and MTE being two examples off the top of my head.

Dod

Yes, I am sorry about the situation too, and I do understand and appreciate where you are coming from.

What frustrated me is that usually I do (though agreed not always), go to time consuming lengths to look up the correct full names of IT's that I refer to in my posts, as I often don't know the exact full name myself. I tend to know them by their tickers. And invariably I do that, because I know that you like to have them shown. .... But then on the odd occasion where I don't/didn't/haven't, usually because the trusts are already under discussion, or in this recent situation, because I was directing a question at Newroad, and I only quoted his previous post so that it would trigger a notification to him of my post/question, your comment was thrown in, resulting in a stream of posts about EPIC's and taking the thread away from the very question I had posed and was seeking an answer to. To be honest, I hadn't thought the topic/question would have been of any interest to you, which seemed to be borne out by your comment only being about EPIC/codes.

I am sure you will have seen that I do list the full names as well as the EPIC's on my portfolio listings, as you recently commented on my misspelling of Dunedin (the only mistake I made in a long list). So it was frustrating and upsetting when I usually go to such lengths to quote the names to then be pulled for that odd occasion when I hadn't. OK maybe I am taking the situation personally, whereas you were wanting to hit a wider audience.

So, yes, I too don't want things to develop into an ongoing "tit for tat" situation. Therefore from here on, I propose to follow my normal practice of quoting the name and ticker in all first posts, new topics, and where it isn't evident in an already ongoing discussion, and I won't mention the subject any further. I appreciate there are more important things in life and I really don't want to get involved in arguments and disputes..

Regards and best wishes,

Richfool

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Re: EPICs and the use (Or not) of them

#438614

Postby Dod101 » August 31st, 2021, 11:36 am

richfool wrote:
Dod101 wrote:I am almost sorry I started this thread. The sort of sniping we are now getting is unhelpful to say the least and I think it is surely obvious that I was thinking mostly about shares and their EPICs that are not often mentioned on these Boards. HFEL, for instance, is fairly well known I would have thought, as is RDSB, HSBA and the like. What mc2fool has said is pretty much my point; it is simply being helpful and courteous to others to spell out an alphabet of letters which refer to some share which is not often mentioned here, JAGI and MTE being two examples off the top of my head.

Dod

Yes, I am sorry about the situation too, and I do understand and appreciate where you are coming from.

What frustrated me is that usually I do (though agreed not always), go to time consuming lengths to look up the correct full names of IT's that I refer to in my posts, as I often don't know the exact full name myself. I tend to know them by their tickers. And invariably I do that, because I know that you like to have them shown. .... But then on the odd occasion where I don't/didn't/haven't, usually because the trusts are already under discussion, or in this recent situation, because I was directing a question at Newroad, and I only quoted his previous post so that it would trigger a notification to him of my post/question, your comment was thrown in, resulting in a stream of posts about EPIC's and taking the thread away from the very question I had posed and was seeking an answer to. To be honest, I hadn't thought the topic/question would have been of any interest to you, which seemed to be borne out by your comment only being about EPIC/codes.

I am sure you will have seen that I do list the full names as well as the EPIC's on my portfolio listings, as you recently commented on my misspelling of Dunedin (the only mistake I made in a long list). So it was frustrating and upsetting when I usually go to such lengths to quote the names to then be pulled for that odd occasion when I hadn't. OK maybe I am taking the situation personally, whereas you were wanting to hit a wider audience.

So, yes, I too don't want things to develop into an ongoing "tit for tat" situation. Therefore from here on, I propose to follow my normal practice of quoting the name and ticker in all first posts, new topics, and where it isn't evident in an already ongoing discussion, and I won't mention the subject any further. I appreciate there are more important things in life and I really don't want to get involved in arguments and disputes..

Regards and best wishes,

Richfool


Thanks but there is really no need for any personal comment. It is appreciated though.

Dod

Urbandreamer
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Re: EPICs and the use (Or not) of them

#438638

Postby Urbandreamer » August 31st, 2021, 12:39 pm

I confess, that like some others, I mostly think in terms of Epic's.

Since I irritated Dod in one post by using 6-8 of them I have tried to include the proper names, but I do think that expecting a hard and fast rule is a bit too far.

Especially a hard and fast rule along the lines of "well known EPIC's being ok". How and who decides what's well known?

I also can't see that much difference between the EPIC and the name in certain well publicised examples.
Ie the epic for the company called Abrdn is ABDN. Not my fault, I was quite happy with the company being called Aberdeen and it's previous epic.

To be honest I have always assumed that having described why I own or am interested in something, that anyone else who is similarly interested would do a lot more research than simply looking up the name. Indeed the name can be misleading rather than obscure like Abrdn.

SMT (Scottish Mortgage Trust) doesn't do mortgages. Something that confused my wife when I bought some for our children's JISA's. Claiming that "we all know that" is only the same as claiming that "we all know SMT is a code for Scottish Mortgage".
Indeed the EPIC can provide clarity.
I'm sure that we all know of zoom the videophone app. During the early days of the pandemiic while I'm sure that many bought ZM, some bought ZOOM.
ZOOM is not the epic for zoom communications, but zoom technologies. It's suspected that many mistakenly bought the wrong company.
https://investorplace.com/2020/03/zoom- ... investors/

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Re: EPICs and the use (Or not) of them

#438640

Postby mc2fool » August 31st, 2021, 12:39 pm

richfool wrote:
mc2fool wrote:Talk of "simple browser solutions" miss the point. This is about consideration. It's like holding the door open for someone, and for the vast majority of cases only takes a second or two, if that. It's something courteous for minuscule effort.

I support the idea, at least for the first mention of a company/IT/ETF/etc in a thread.

Do you mean like here (OP)?

viewtopic.php?f=54&t=29324&hilit=hfel

or here (my post #428077 halfway down the page and subsequent responses):

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13633&start=20

I don't think there's anything to add about this following the subsequent exchange between you and Dod, other than a Hopefully Helpful Hint (HHH)... :D

If you click on the number of a post, e.g. the #428077 at the top of the post you refer to, it will Copy the direct link to that post which you can then Paste elsewhere.

Like so: viewtopic.php?p=428077#p428077

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Re: EPICs and the use (Or not) of them

#438720

Postby BobbyD » August 31st, 2021, 5:36 pm

Dod101 wrote:
I am almost sorry I started this thread. The sort of sniping we are now getting is unhelpful to say the least and I think it is surely obvious that I was thinking mostly about shares and their EPICs that are not often mentioned on these Boards.


It's possible that referring to people who are responding to what you wrote rather than what you intended to write as snipers is discourteous especially when you have indulged in a discussion of HSBA as an example.

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Re: EPICs and the use (Or not) of them

#438745

Postby csearle » August 31st, 2021, 7:49 pm

Moderator Message:
I think we'll leave it at that. I suggest that as a courtesy each poster, if he/she has an inkling that the EPIC they are about to use might not be readily recognised, simply give the full name once on the thread; if on the other hand it's a common-or-garden EPIC then best kept simple. - Chris


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