What is a VPN? Virtual Private Network Meaning

Learn what a VPN is and how it can protect you.

What is a VPN? Virtual Private Network Meaning

Before you connect to a website or other online service, your internet traffic is encrypted and routed through the server of your VPN provider via a virtual private network (VPN). This aids in hiding your online persona and behavior. With the use of a VPN, you may get around geographical limitations, protect your online activities on open Wi-Fi, and conceal your true IP address when using BitTorrent and other applications.

Through the Internet, you can establish a secure connection to another network by using a VPN, or virtual private network. VPNs can be used to gain access to websites that are geoblocked, hide your online activities from snoopers on public WiFi, and much more.

A VPN: What Is It?
To put it simply, a virtual private network (VPN) links your computer, tablet, or smartphone to a different computer located online, also referred to as a server, and permits you to access the internet through the server’s internet connection. You could be able to access things that you wouldn’t ordinarily be able to if that server is located in a different nation because it will appear as though you are coming from that nation.

The advantages of using a VPN, such as being able to circumvent Internet censorship and remotely access local network resources, stem from the fact that the VPN effectively forwards all of your network traffic to the virtual network. The majority of OS systems support VPNs out of the box.

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How Do VPNs Operate?
Your computer functions as though it is connected to the same local network as the VPN when you connect it to it—or any other device, like a tablet or smartphone. The VPN receives all of your network traffic via a secure connection. You can safely access local network resources even while you’re on the other side of the globe since your computer acts as though it’s on the network. Additionally, you will have the ability to browse websites that are geo blocked or use public Wi-Fi as if you were physically present at the VPN’s location.

Your computer communicates with the website over the encrypted VPN connection when you browse the internet while connected to one. Through the encrypted connection, the VPN relays the request on your behalf and returns the website’s response. Netflix will see your connection as coming from within the USA if you are using a VPN based in the USA.

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Are you looking for the best VPN special coupon code? We got you covered. In theory, your data is automatically at risk when you connect to the internet. Engaging in harmless activities like streaming media, online shopping, web browsing, and others might expose private information, including banking credentials and other sensitive data, to unscrupulous parties. Purchasing a VPN is one simple approach to reduce your risk and secure yourself online. There are several reasonably priced ones available online that have special coupon codes on our website.

By establishing an encrypted secure connection between your device and the internet, a virtual private network, or VPN, helps you browse the web privately and protects your personal information from prying eyes. The most reliable VPN services of 2024 have already been evaluated and compiled, and we’ve included the best ways to sign up for less below.

Remembering that free VPN services aren’t worth the danger is crucial. They are mostly engaged in the same game of collecting and selling your data. Fortunately, there are now some excellent VPN offers available, with costs starting at less than $3.99 per month if you prepaid for a year or two of subscription. We’ve put a few of the industry giants to the test and compiled our list of the top VPN offers.

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There are numerous justifications for using a VPN. Did you know, for instance, that your internet service provider collects as much information as it can about your online activities? The top ISPs have collected user information on private subjects like race, sexual orientation, and current location. It has been aggregated, cross-referenced, and shared with other partners by the ISPs.

You can stay safe from these widespread methods of data collection with the use of a VPN. A VPN can help you virtually move your location to a different city or country in addition to hiding your online activity by offering a private and secure “tunnel” to your online destination. This is a nice bonus if you’re looking to circumvent local censorship laws or try out various streaming media offerings in various locales.

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Dividend stocks are possibly the only investment where you have the opportunity for capital growth as well as income. It’s truly empowering once you see the impact that dividend stocks can make on any account size. The key ingredient is DIVIDENDS

Investment trusts: deprioritise the discount

While many investors focus on an investment trust’s discount, for those trusts with an income remit the distribution rate at time of purchase may have a larger effect on total return over the long term.

Author

Fran Radano

INVESTMENT MANAGER, THE NORTH AMERICAN INCOME TRUST

While closed-end fund investors may find the discount to net asset value (NAV) exciting, as Fran Radano explains, there is a bit more to it than that.

The past few years have been challenging for investors. An elevated stock market and interest rate volatility caused by both inflation and hawkish central banks sent many investors rushing to the sidelines. This dynamic led to indiscriminate selling and, at times, pushed investment trust prices lower, driving discounts to historically wide levels.

In fact, after the Bank of England started raising interest rates at the tail-end of 2021, a great deal of investment trusts have gone on to trade at their widest discounts since 2008’s Global Financial Crisis. In fact, the average investment trust discount fell to 16.9% at the end of October 2023 before recovering to 9% by the end of the year

What are discounts?

An investment trust can trade at a share price that is higher or lower than its net asset value (NAV). When a trust’s share price is higher than its NAV, it is trading at a premium. When the share price is lower than its NAV, it is trading at a discount. A discount or a premium is simply a number representing the relationship between a trust’s share price and its NAV.

Investment trusts often trade at discounts, but over the course of a market cycle it has historically been the case that the discounts narrow and widen, like how the stock market rises and falls.

During volatile markets, discounts can widen significantly, offering investors the opportunity to purchase shares well below their NAV. Some investors prefer purchasing investment trusts at a wide discount because doing so increases a trust’s distribution rate and may present a higher potential for capital appreciation if the discount narrows due to the share price rising to NAV. Because, as many investors fail to realise, discounts can also narrow as NAV falls to the price. Again, a discount or premium is simply a relationship between two numbers – nothing more.

Other investors are less focused on discounts and prefer to invest in a trust due to the trust’s investment objective and its ability to provide regular distribution payments.

“Oh, it’s a 10% discount, that looks good.” Well, unbeknownst to investors, the trust may usually be trading at a 15% discount, and this 10% discount isn’t much of a bargain. Furthermore, an investment trust discount could be driven by many different factors: poor historical performance, low distribution levels relative to peers, or market expectations of poor performance to come.

We believe it’s important to gain an understanding of what is behind the discount. If no reason can be found, or if the only reason is that the trust’s underlying asset class seems to be out of favour, those may be signs the trust’s discount is truly attractive.

Distributions, distributions, distributions

Every investment trust has a formal investment objective which details how they invest. The objective will also indicate if the trust aims to deliver capital growth, income or a mix of both. For those trusts with an income remit, investors have long valued the dividend payments and diversification benefits on offer. Step up the Association of Investment Companies (AIC) which publishes an annual ‘dividend heroes’ list of those trusts that have consistently increased their annual dividends for at least 20 years in a row.

For those trusts with an income focus, it is distributions – not discounts – that have historically been the primary contributor to total returns over longer periods of time. The benefit from a narrowing discount diminishes over time as a contributor to overall total return while distributions remain the dominant contributor.

Consider a trust that distributes 7% of NAV per year and has a 10% discount. If the trust is held for three years, assuming its NAV does not change, and its price rises to the NAV at the end of the three-year period the distribution would account for roughly two-thirds of the price return every year (Table 1).
Table 1. Most of return should come through distribution

	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3
Starting NAV	$10.00	$10.00	$10.00
Starting price	$9.00	$9.33	$9.66
Yield	7% NAV
Ending Price	$9.33	$9.66	$10.00
Ending NAV	$10.00	$10.00	$10.00
Price return	$0.70	$0.70	$0.70
Total price return	$1.03	$1.03	$1.04
Total price return %	11.4%	11.0%	10.8%
% from distribution	68.0%	68.0%	67.0%
% from discount	32.0%	32.0%	33.0%

Source: abrdn, February 2024. For illustrative purposes only.

Therefore, investors may be better served by focusing on a trust’s distribution than its discount. Final thoughts While it’s exciting to follow an investment trust’s discount, it’s ultimately not value-additive. Once invested, the most important thing to assess is the trust’s total return performance and whether it is meeting investment objectives. Historically, the key, long-term driver of a trust’s performance has not been its discount, but its distribution rate.

££££££££££££

If an Investment Trusts discount to NAV is high, it follows the price will be

lower and the yield higher.

Well, if I have a portfolio of £20,000 and I invested it in high-yielding dividend stocks like Phoenix Group and Aviva, I could expect to average an 8% yield. So my £20k would get me around £1,600 a year in dividends.

££££££££££££

If we concentrate on the tail and not the dog £1,600 compounded at

8% for 30 years would provide 16k of income.

Whilst it’s unlikely that u would be able to re-invest at 8% for the whole

time but I guess it could average out to around that figure.

The Motley Fool

We’d all love a second income, right ? In fact, that’s the reason many of us invest. It allows us to turn our capital into dividends and can provide us with a financial boost throughout the year.

But how could I go about turning my second income into my only income? Surely it must be possible.

Let’s take a closer look.

How much would I need?
Well, if I have a portfolio of £20,000 and I invested it in high-yielding dividend stocks like Phoenix Group and Aviva, I could expect to average an 8% yield. So my £20k would get me around £1,600 a year in dividends.

Clearly, that’s not enough to live on. It works out at just £130 a month.

So what would I need? Well, in today’s climate, I’d probably want at least £30,000 in dividends a year and I could earn this without being taxed by investing through my ISA.
But to achieve this I’m going to need something in the realms of £400,000 invested in stocks paying 8% yields.

Getting to £400k
Naturally, building a portfolio worth £400k can sound daunting. And it’s a huge jump to go from just £20,000 to £400,000. There are four key actions required to make it work.

The first is investing over time. It’s not going to happen overnight. We need to appreciate that to build a portfolio worth £400k, we need to invest over a long period of time.

The second action is investing regularly. This allows us to ride out the peaks and troughs of the market. But it’s also important that we keep topping up our portfolio.

Next, I need to invest in dividends stocks. I’m looking for companies with strong but sustainable dividend yields. One way we can assess the health of dividend yield is by looking at the coverage ratio (DCR). Anything above two is healthy. Some stocks will have lower DCRs but healthy cash flows — these stocks are also investment material, in my opinion.

The final action is reinvesting my dividends. Every year I need to take the dividends I earn and pile them back into these high-yielding stocks.

Compounding
Collectively, these actions are the basis of a promising compound returns strategy. This is the practice of reinvesting dividends over time to achieve exponential gains.

For example, if I invested £20,000 in a company with a 8% yield, at the end of the year I could expect to have £21,600, assuming the share price of the stock in question remained constant.

That’s fine, but it’s not ground breaking. The impressive bit comes when we reinvest that dividend year after year.

Without regular contributions, it would take 38 years to turn £20k into £400k. But if I were to contribute £300 a month, and increased that contribution by 5% annually, I could get there in 21 years.

Naturally, the more I contribute, and the greater my starting figure, the easier it is to get there. And after 21 years, it’s worth highlighting that my portfolio is growing incredibly fast and I may need more than £30,000 a year in two decades’ time.

Of course, there’s no guaranteed way to build a portfolio, and I could always lose money. But if I follow these steps, I stand a good chance of turning my second income into my only income.

INVESTING EXPLAINED: What you need to know about KIDs – Key Information Documents

Story by City & Finance Reporter

In this series, we bust the jargon and explain a popular investing term or theme. Here it’s KIDs.

What are these?
Nothing to do with children, or goats as you suspected. KID stands for Key Information Document – a summary of the facts and figures you need to know before choosing a fund.

This information, compiled by the fund manager, includes the fund’s objectives, its risk and reward profile, the charges and performance data.

Looking up: KIDs are a summary of the facts and figures you need to know before choosing a fund

The document is a requirement of the PRIIPs – packaged retail and insurance-based investment products regulations – an EU-wide safety standard for investors.

The KID is a shorter, simplified version of the document that it has largely replaced, known as the KIID – Key Investor Information Document.

This is a requirement of another EU-wide set of rules UCITS – Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities Directive.

Both sets of EU regulations were ‘on-shored’ by the UK post-Brexit.

Collective investment is a fancy name for any type of fund, including investment trusts and ETFs – exchange traded funds.

Why am I reading about this now?
The methods used to calculate some of the other numbers in the KID, such as the charges, have become the source of controversy.

There is a particular row over the forward-looking performance figures in the document which are widely considered to be misleading.

Investment trust managers argue that KIDs – which are supposed to ensure that consumers make an informed decision – are doing the exact opposite.

The trade body Association of Investment Trusts (AIC) says that ‘too many KIDs overstate potential performance – and understate risks which can mislead consumers about the returns that they could receive’.

The AIC also takes issue with the cost disclosure rules, although the watchdog Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which says that the current system is ‘not supporting good customer outcomes’ has made some concessions on this front.

Is this going to get sorted out?
As part of the wide-ranging Edinburgh reforms to financial services, the Government has pledged to establish a new disclosure regime to replace PRIIPs and UCITs.

To date, however, the House of Commons committee overseeing the reforms says the big promises are yet to be fulfilled. This adds to the pressure for action this year.

In the meantime, where can I go for information that’s more reliable?
While waiting for the replacement to the KID, it is always worth checking whether any funds you have appear on the recommended lists prepared by AJ Bell, Bestinvest, Fidelity, FundCalibre, Hargreaves Lansdown and Interactive Investor.

Bestinvest’s Dog Fund ratings are a guide to the funds that are not delivering, whatever their KID may say.

Despite the fuss, I’m still interested in looking at the KIDs for my Isa funds…
You should be able to find a fund’s KID on the website of the manager, and also on the funds sections of platforms like Interactive Investor and AJ Bell.

KIDs are not the most exciting read. But, setting aside their shortcomings, you may find out some stuff you did not know – and probably should have.

Thursday 2 May

Atrato Onsite Energy PLC ex-dividend payment date
Blackstone Loan Financing Ltd ex-dividend payment date
CQS New City High Yield Fund Ltd ex-dividend payment date
Dunedin Income Growth Investment Trust PLC ex-dividend payment date
Edinburgh Investment Trust PLC ex-dividend payment date
Global Opportunities Trust PLC ex-dividend payment date
M&G Credit Income Investment Trust PLC ex-dividend payment date

The Motley Fool

I’d use these methods for targeting a lifetime of passive income.

Story by Charlie Keough

It’s no secret that inflation has wreaked havoc on markets in the past months. And with that, it’s no surprise that many investors are focusing on generating passive income.

Investing in companies with high dividend yields is a great way to put money to work as opposed to it stagnating.

However, it’s smart to have a strategy before targeting passive income. And there are plenty of considerations that must be taken into account to ensure a greater potential for success.

Let’s explore these further.

The strategy
The first consideration is my timeframe for investing. Often we see the promotion of investing is to ‘get rich quick’. But as a Fool, I much prefer to view my investments over a long-term horizon.

As billionaire investor Warren Buffett famously said: “If you don’t feel comfortable owning a stock for 10 years, you shouldn’t own it for 10 minutes”. And more often than not, the stock market has proven that investing with a long-term outlook is the best way to extract the benefits.
Granted, investors may find it difficult to remain persistent when they see the value of their investments falling. But by viewing them over a timeframe of five to 10 years minimum, short-term volatility is ironed out.

Secondly, I must also consider methods I can use to boost my profits. This predominantly exists in the form of reinvesting my dividends. By doing this, I can benefit from compounding which, over time, will allow my pot to continue to grow at a greater pace.

On top of this, I can also generate greater returns by consistently adding to the size of my investment.

£500 invested in a stock generating 7% growth a year (which, of course, I may not achieve) with a 6% yield would leave me sat with £24,000 after 30 years. However, if I topped this up with a monthly payment of £30, over the same period, my pot could be worth over £150,000.

Finally, I’d diversify my investments. By doing this, I’d reduce my reliance on one company or industry.

Putting this into practice
So if that’s the strategy, how do I implement it? Well, I think the FTSE 100 is a great place to start.

The index is home to a variety of quality companies with growth potential that also offer high dividend yields.

There are over 15 companies that offer yields of 6% or more, spread across industries such as investments, tobacco, housebuilding and insurance. This includes firms such as Rio Tinto (8%), British American Tobacco (9%) and Legal & General (8.5%). And its quality companies with long-term growth potential that I’d target.
More widely, I’d also look at companies that offer yields above the index’s average of 4%. Here, I like the look of HSBC and Lloyds.

Of course, there are risks. Firstly, I wouldn’t buy a stock solely due to its dividend yield. And greater research would have to be done to convince me it has the long-term growth potential I’m seeking.

Additionally, the risk with targeting dividend stocks is that payments can be reduced, or cut altogether, as seen on multiple occasions. I must be aware of this.

However, by employing this strategy to the correct companies, I’m confident I could build wealth.

BWRM will be leaving the watch list because as the price rises the yield falls and now only yields 5.8%. If u have pair traded it with another high yielder, u could book some profit and run the balance.

The worst thing that can happen ‘if u take profit’ is the price continues to rise and u have to take more profit. U could re-invest the profit into another high yielder to grow the Snowball.

Different strokes for different folks.

There’s a ton of information on the net and it can get confusing when they all say something different.

The blog is only interested if the next dividend is going to be paid, better if it gently increases but that’s always the first thing I check when an update is issued.

KISS