Let's print some money....

No, not a reference to the Bank of England's latest smack-addict announcement to dump more money into the economy to the cost of all those who have spent time accumulating into savings and pensions (thanks guys!)

Actually, it's a reference to my latest stock selection - De La Rue - which prints money in over 150 currencies (there are 182 in total).  That's a pretty strong start - it looks like market dominance to me.  And in this era of money-printing, it has to be a classic "picks and shovels" stock selection.  How could a selection like this go wrong?  Well, we could all move back to barter or base metal currencies, but I am afraid that I don't see that happening.

Is it a good company?  Well, the Wikipedia entry says that "the company was recognized by Hermann Simon as a role model for other small to medium sized business in his book Hidden Champions".  Good for him.  More importantly, other than market dominance, let's look at that driver of long-term market returns: dividends.  It looks pretty good - okay, back in the mid to late 00s there were a lot of special dividends making it very attractive, but now it still yields around 4.28%. 

Laura's a big fan - this months run-through of stock options was pretty pointless, as it was the only one she wanted me to buy. 

What am I thinking about next?  Well, i'd like to get some more Aviva stock because I think the announcements to sell off all the crappy business bits and focus on the profitable bits, makes sense.  Sounds a bit like Jack Welch's approach to GE in the 1980s.  I just had a look at their preference shares as well, although these only seem to yield 8.5%ish - and I don't think the company is going to the wall just yet.

Oh - final bit of good news.  I said that I had opted out of the state second pension (last tax year was the last opportunity) - well this last week I got a decent rebate which has done a good job of bolstering my cash war chest.  I am probably going to pull my next investment date forward by a few days - and probably drop back into a monthly cycle again.  I am off on honeymoon at the end of this month, so I'll probably get back into the market a couple of days before that.