To address concerns around overcompensation and ensure a fairer inflation adjustment mechanism for the RO, the UK government, the Scottish Government, and the Northern Ireland Executive are considering two options for transitioning from the Retail Price Index (RPI) to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Both options aim to deliver a more proportionate approach to inflation indexation, reduce costs to consumers, and align with broader government and
regulatory policy.

Option 1: Immediate Switch to CPI Indexation

This option would involve a simple switch in the the price index used to adjust the RO buy-out price from the RPI to the CPI. Subject to legislative schedules, the UK government, the Scottish Government, and the Northern Ireland Executive would look to implement ahead of

Changes to inflation indexation in the Renewables Obligation scheme
the next annual adjustment scheduled in March 2026 which would see the RO buy-out price increased in line with CPI. This approach would ensure generators continue to receive a stable and predictable return that maintains its value, whilst making savings in the energy system.

Option 2: Temporary Freeze and Gradual Realignment with CPI
This alternative would involve freezing the RO buy-out price at the 2025/26 level (£67.06 per ROC), taking effect from April 2026 (subject to legislative schedules). The government would construct a ‘shadow’ price schedule for the RO buy-out price from 2002, annually adjusted using CPI instead of RPI. No further inflation-linked increases would be applied until the cumulative effect of CPI-based inflation on that shadow price matches the current RPI-adjusted
buy-out price. At this point of realignment, annual indexation would resume using CPI.

This option goes further than Option 1 and would not only prevent further overcompensation in future but gradually realign scheme costs after presumed historical overinflation caused by RPI’s tendency to overstate inflation. It could stabilise scheme costs in the short term and transition to a more sustainable inflation measure over time. This would bring with it greater
long-term savings for consumers, as scheme costs would be held steady until CPI and RPI inflation realign. We estimate that in scheme compliance year 2026/27 this could save consumers around £300m, rising to an estimated saving of around £820m in 2031/32.
The UK government, the Scottish Government, and the Northern Ireland Executive are seeking views on which of these proposals presents the best alternative to the current methodology of RPI-indexation of the RO scheme.

We are particularly mindful that any change needs to be balanced against the broader impacts on renewables investment in the UK, which is essential to protect consumers against volatile fossil fuel prices. This is particularly pertinent in a period where the sector is focused on delivering the UK government’s Clean Power 2030 mission.

Dividends can be more reliable than share prices as they’re driven by
the companies performance itself and not by the whim of investors.

Thursday 6 November

abrdn Property Income Trust Ltd ex-dividend date
Artemis UK Future Leaders PLC ex-dividend date
BlackRock Smaller Cos Trust PLC ex-dividend date
Chenavari Toro Income Fund Ltd ex-dividend date
Custodian Property Income REIT PLC ex-dividend date
CVC Income & Growth GBP Ltd ex-dividend date
Dunedin Income Growth Investment Trust PLC ex-dividend date
JPMorgan India Growth & Income PLC ex-dividend date
Picton Property Income Ltd ex-dividend date
Taylor Maritime Investment Ltd ex-dividend date
Tritax Big Box REIT PLC ex-dividend date

As a pair trade I’ve bought 2k of Temple Bar IT TMPL for the Snowball. The position will be treated as a quasi tracker and may have to be held for several years to print a profit. IF TMPL continues to go up, I’ll most probably sell the position unless I had bought some more shares and then I would just take out the profit and re-invest into a higher yielder. That’s the plan anyway.

I’ve bought 1698 shares in ORIT for 1k, this completes the current portfolio weighting with the share.

Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust plc

(“ORIT” or the “Company”)

Dividend Declaration

The Board of Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust plc is pleased to declare an interim dividend in respect of the period from 1 July 2025 to 30 September 2025 of 1.54 pence per Ordinary Share.

Payable on 28 November 2025 to shareholders on the register as at 14 November 2025 (the “Q3 2025 Dividend”). The ex-dividend date will be 13 November 2025.

The Q3 2025 declared payment is in line with the Company’s dividend target for the financial year from 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2025 of 6.17 pence per Ordinary Share*.

A portion of the Company’s dividend is designated as an interest distribution for UK tax purposes. The interest streaming percentage for the Q3 2025 Dividend is 59.3%.

Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust plc

(“ORIT” or the “Company”)

Q3 2025 Factsheet and Net Asset Value

Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust PLC, the diversified renewables infrastructure company, announces that its unaudited Net Asset Value (“NAV”) as at 30 September 2025, on a cum-income basis, was £523.4 million or 98.46 pence per Ordinary Share (30 June 2025: £540.4 million or 99.46 pence per Ordinary Share).

		Pence per Ordinary Share*	£m
Unaudited NAV as at 30 June 2025		99.46	540.4
Power prices and green certificates		(1.42)	(7.7)
Macroeconomic assumptions		0.65	3.5
Share buybacks		0.64	(8.2)
Q2 2025 interim dividend		(1.52)	(8.3)
Other movements		0.66	3.6
Unaudited NAV as at 30 September 2025		98.46	523.4

* Totals may not sum exactly due to rounding

Power prices and green certificates

Net movements in power prices and green certificates reduced NAV by £7.7 million over the quarter.

·    The reduction reflects a recalibration of green certificate assumptions to adopt a more conservative external long-term forecast curve which is closely aligned with recent market trends. This led to a reduction in NAV of £12.9 million.

·    Short-term and medium- to long-term power price forecasts increased slightly across ORIT’s core markets, partially offsetting the overall valuation reduction with a positive impact of £5.2 million.

ORIT’s portfolio continues to benefit from a high level of contracted revenue. As at 30 September 2025, 86% of the Company’s forecast revenue over the next 24 months was fixed or contracted, up from 85% at the end of June 2025. This strong degree of revenue visibility continues to provide robust protection against any short-term market volatility.

Macroeconomic assumptions

Macroeconomic updates had a positive impact on valuations during the quarter.

·      Short-term UK inflation forecasts increased marginally, supporting inflation-linked revenue across the portfolio.

·    Sterling weakened against the euro, generating a gross valuation gain of £7.3 million before currency hedging. After accounting for the Company’s FX hedges, the net impact of foreign exchange movements was a gain of £1.7 million.

Overall, the combined impact of these macroeconomic factors resulted in a net valuation increase of £3.5 million, equivalent to 0.65 pence per Ordinary Share.

Share buybacks

During Q3 2025, ORIT repurchased 11.8 million shares for approximately £8.2 million, at an average price of 69.4 pence per Ordinary Share. As at 30 September 2025, the Company had deployed £23.6 million of its £30 million buyback programme.

Following these repurchases, the total number of voting rights in the Company stood at 543,370,568. The reduction in shares in issue was accretive to NAV per share, resulting in an uplift of 0.64 pence in the quarter and 1.8 pence cumulatively since the programme began in June 2024.

The Company’s recently launched ‘ORIT 2030‘ strategy sets a renewed focus on long-term shareholder value creation, prioritising capital deployment into construction and development-stage projects which are expected to deliver higher returns and sustainable NAV growth. While buybacks remain an available tool, future capital allocation will be more strongly weighted towards investments that enhance scale, resilience, and dividend sustainability.

Other movements

An increase of £3.6 million or 0.66 pence per Ordinary Share was recorded from other valuation movements.

This increase reflects a £14.0 million uplift relating to the expected return on the assets, driven by the net present value of future cash flows being brought forward from 30 June 2025 to 30 September 2025. However, this gain was largely offset by lower-than-expected cash generation, principally due to low wind speeds, adjustments to future Capex and operational assumptions for some sites, and fund-level expenses, mainly related to the Company’s operating and transaction costs (including RCF interest).

Gearing

As at 30 September 2025, ORIT had total gearing (total debt drawn as a percentage of Gross Asset Value (“GAV”¹) of 47.8%, up slightly from 46.5% as at 30 June 2025. This temporary increase reflects the continued execution of the Company’s share buyback programme. ORIT remains on track to reduce total gearing to below 40% by the end of 2025, supported by scheduled debt amortisation of project-level term loans and active portfolio management through the ongoing asset recycling programme.

Notes

1              “Gross Asset Value” means the aggregate of (i) the fair value of the Company’s underlying investments (whether or not subsidiaries), valued on an unlevered basis, (ii) the relevant assets and liabilities of the Company (including cash) valued at fair value (other than third party borrowings) to the extent not included in (i) or (ii) above.

Factsheet

The Company’s Q3 2025 factsheet has been published today and is available to download at:

https://www.octopusrenewablesinfrastructure.com/all-reports-publications

Is the stock market going to crash in November?

Stephen Wright thinks Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft boosting AI spending makes a stock market crash this month less likely than it was a week ago.

Posted by Stephen Wright

Published 2 November, 8:02 am GMT

MSFT

When investing, your capital is at risk. The value of your investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you put in.

The content of this article is provided for information purposes only and is not intended to be, nor does it constitute, any form of personal advice. Investments in a currency other than sterling are exposed to currency exchange risk.

You can never completely rule out a stock market crash. But I think the chances of a big decline in share prices just got significantly lower in the last seven days. 

As I see it, one of the biggest threats to the overall stock market is the artificial intelligence (AI) trade running out of steam. And the last week has been a very positive one on this front.

Hyperscalers

The major cloud companies – Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) – all reported earnings this week. And there was a common theme among them.

All three reported strong growth driven by high demand and all three announced plans to increase their spending. I think this is hugely positive for the stock market as a whole.

Microsoft is one of the best examples. The firm generated 40% revenue growth in its cloud computing business and increased its capital expenditure forecasts.

The market didn’t like this and the stock fell 3% after the earnings announcement. But I think this is a very positive sign for the stock market as a whole.

AI stocks

Right now, AI accounts for a lot of the S&P 500. And with the rest of the US economy finding it hard to generate any meaningful growth, investors are piling into artificial intelligence stocks. 

One of the things that could derail this is one of the major cloud computing companies deciding to cut capital expenditures. That would be disastrous for Nvidia and the market as a whole.

Why might they do this? If it looks like the huge investments being made are going to generate weaker returns than expected, the likes of Microsoft might rethink their spending. 

Alternatively, if investors get a sense that the investments are speculative rather than meeting existing demand, things could unravel quickly. But the latest results present no sign of this.

OpenAI

It’s clear AI stocks are in fashion at the moment (which is the understatement of the year). And that makes Microsoft’s stake in OpenAI an interesting development. 

OpenAI has gone from being a non-profit organisation to a capped-profit one. And this is leading a lot of analysts to think the company might go public in the near future. 

Microsoft stands to benefit from this. Its overall returns would be limited by the capped-profit model, but it could still realise a significant return on its initial investment.

The stock looks expensive at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of almost 40. But its growth prospects mean it deserves serious consideration as a potential buy.

Crash potential

The stock market could crash for any number of reasons – a potential AI bubble is just one of them. Other risks include a potential recession and higher inflation in the US.

Those are still very much live and investors need to be ready for a downturn at any time. But the promise of higher capital expenditures seems to have fended off the AI risk, at least for the time being.

A hybrid passive income plan you can start in November

Most long-term investment plans involve reinvesting dividends for decades before they generate any passive income. Here’s one that doesn’t.

Posted by Stephen Wright

Published 2 November

PHP

When investing, your capital is at risk. The value of your investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you put in.

The content of this article is provided for information purposes only and is not intended to be, nor does it constitute, any form of personal advice. Investments in a currency other than sterling are exposed to currency exchange risk.

In general, investing plans either involve reinvesting dividends to aim for higher returns over time, or withdrawing them for passive income. But what if you do both? 

More specifically, what happens if you invest £1,000 a month in dividend stocks, take out half the cash it returns each year, then reinvest the rest ? I think the answer is quite interesting

Return potential

The question obviously depends on what kind of return you get on your investments. But (for reasons we’ll come back to later), let’s suppose a 6% annual return. 

At that rate, a £1,000 monthly investment with half the return taken out and half reinvested turns into a portfolio worth £140,091 after 10 years. And it generates a total of £7,944 a year.

Importantly, you’ll have already taken out £20,091 over that time as passive income to do whatever you like with. And the numbers start to go up sharply from that point.

After 20 years, the total reaches £329,123, has already paid you £89,123, and makes £19,752 a year. By year 30, it’s at £584,194, earns £35,051 annually, and you’ve already had £224,194.

A hybrid plan

Most dividend investing strategies take one of two approaches. They either involve reinvesting to grow returns or taking out the cash generated as immediate income.

The problem with reinvesting is that it means you don’t actually get any income you can spend for years or even decades. And isn’t that the point of focusing on dividend stocks?

The downside to withdrawing the cash is that you miss out on the powerful force of compound interest over time. So your returns are likely to be much lower as a result.

With the hybrid strategy, you stand to benefit from both. You get half of your annual return as passive income you can spend straight away, while the rest grows over time.

6% return

The big question, then, is where to get a 6% annual return? I think there are a few potential candidates, but one that’s worth considering is Primary Health Properties (LSE:PHP).

The firm owns and leases a portfolio of GP surgeries. And as a real estate investment trust (REIT) it pays out 90% of its income to investors, instead of paying tax on it.

Please note that tax treatment depends on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in future. The content in this article is provided for information purposes only. It is not intended to be, neither does it constitute, any form of tax advice.

The portfolio has very high occupancy rates and with the NHS as its main tenant, the risk of defaults is low. An ageing population also means I expect this to continue.

There’s a 7.5% dividend yield and the firm has a very good record of increasing its returns over time. So for investors targeting passive income, I think it’s definitely a stock to consider.

Diversification

Primary Health Properties isn’t a risk-free investment (if there is such a thing). Its income depends on what governments decide to do about the NHS and public health. 

I don’t see any threat on the horizon in this month’s Budget, but investors aiming for decades of passive income need to look further ahead than this. And this is something to note.

The best way to limit this risk is by building a diversified portfolio. Fortunately, there are plenty of other stocks worth considering right now that I think give investors a chance to do this.

Foresight Solar Fund Ltd

Proactive

Written by: Ian Lyall

Not investment advice

LSE:FSFL

Foresight Solar Fund: Simple maths tells us investors should start warming to the sector

Last updated: 10:48 01 Nov 2025 GMT

Is the sun finally going to shine again for the UK solar sector? The UK’s 10-year government bond yield has slipped to 4.39%, its lowest level this year, and that is good news for funds such as Foresight Solar Fund Ltd (LSE:FSFL), whose share price tends to move in the opposite direction to gilt yields.

It comes down to simple maths. Renewable energy trusts are long-term, income-paying assets, not so different from bonds, so when government borrowing costs fall, their relatively generous dividends start to look more appealing.

Historically, the link between gilt yields and renewables valuations has been almost one-for-one, and investors appear to be betting on more of the same as markets look ahead to a possible rate cut from the Bank of England in December.

Foresight Solar has other reasons to feel cheerful. Operationally, this year has brought record sunshine across the UK, helping the company deliver strong generation figures. 

Meanwhile, it has locked in favourable power prices through hedging, essentially fixing future revenues in advance, giving the fund a solid cushion of dividend cover for 2025.

At the current share price, Foresight Solar is yielding just over 10% on a 1.3 times covered dividend.

That means its cash generation comfortably exceeds what it needs to pay investors, even after accounting for debt repayments. The trust has never missed a payout since listing in 2013 and has gradually increased its dividend each year.

Support for renewables remains a rare point of stability in Westminster. Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, was one of the few to keep his role in Labour’s recent reshuffle, underlining the cross-party consensus around clean energy investment.

Foresight has also been selling some assets to pay down debt, which should strengthen its balance sheet further. For now, investors are being paid to wait while the market discount, the gap between the share price and the value of its underlying assets, narrows.

With gilt yields on the slide and a steady dividend stream, the outlook for Foresight Solar is starting to look brighter once again.

If you look closely at the TMPL graph, you will note that, even including dividends, you made, zero, zilch nothing for 2 years.

The same pattern can be seen with the control share. Mr. Market stays in business by persuading the great unwashed that the market will go up forever and then dumps on them. Maybe watch the share to get a feel for the market direction.