We would love to hear your thoughts about our site and services, please take our survey here.
London South East prides itself on its community spirit, and in order to keep the chat section problem free, we ask all members to follow these simple rules. In these rules, we refer to ourselves as "we", "us", "our". The user of the website is referred to as "you" and "your".
By posting on our share chat boards you are agreeing to the following:
The IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. As a user you agree to any information you have entered being stored in a database. You agree that we have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic or board at any time should we see fit. You agree that we have the right to remove any post without notice. You agree that we have the right to suspend your account without notice.
Please note some users may not behave properly and may post content that is misleading, untrue or offensive.
It is not possible for us to fully monitor all content all of the time but where we have actually received notice of any content that is potentially misleading, untrue, offensive, unlawful, infringes third party rights or is potentially in breach of these terms and conditions, then we will review such content, decide whether to remove it from this website and act accordingly.
Premium Members are members that have a premium subscription with London South East. You can subscribe here.
London South East does not endorse such members, and posts should not be construed as advice and represent the opinions of the authors, not those of London South East Ltd, or its affiliates.
Spin, just look at this. I clipped it out of a 50min motivational vid. I'm sure you can find the whole thing if it interests you. But this message is important. I'm trying to tell people and of course they don't want to hear. As a result, I post less (it apparently annoys people who are not of a like mind) and almost no detail now on what I do). Interestingly, I was recently contacted and told to shut up and told if you're doing well, say less. That might have been random, but it might not.
https://screenrec.com/share/LTCJigQWIm
I fully accept a lot of what you say. I have been buying and selling now for a long time and have learnt a lot. Sometimes with expensive lessons but overall I am able to continue with my extravagant life style. This year though I finally decided to remove Aim from the equation. I only have two holding left and their days are numbered. This week my fingers hovered over the buy for a few here but my feelings towards are leaders put pay to my daliance. I have never seen such a load of uninspiring individuals. And that is on both sides. One thing though is cheesing me off. I feel openly gagged...
Sek, you're saying the market is wrong and you are right. But at the end of the day, you have to deal with the value the market ascribes to ENQ. This involves risk, I suspect that your research inadequately takes into account risk. Although I'm an ENQ fan and LTH (do I get a badge for that) I recognise that for the moment I'm wrong and for the last 2 years or maybe more, I've been wrong. Since I recognise that, I've been able to work around it so that I'm fine. But saying something should be one way, is great for discussion, it's great for confirmation bias'ers' but it ignores the market. The market is telling you that there is something else. I believe it's related to risk. I don't understand it (so don't go all detailed expecting an answer on that). It is what it is, we have to work with it.
If you're right (which I believe you are), over time those with investments will gain a good bit I hope. But don't ignore the risk.
Spin, I get the concept, but don't agree. I think you have to be nimble, avoid losses, recognise excactly what you seem to recognise, but make decisions that lead you out of the trap. I really hope you don't believe the old (2020 I believe) addage that 'Time in the market, not timing the market' is the way to go. If you look at the US500, that's a surefire win for 'Time in the market' in as much as you would have made money by just investing and waiting. However, you'd have made more by buying Amazon or one of the other 7 Techs and that would (or should) have been about reconising value rather than passive investing. If you believe something has value today, then you're timing the market. I move from one place to another and it works just fine. But I'm not suggesting everyone would get a soft landing doing that. You need to be good at it, as with anything else. If you're not good at it, then go passiv eand buy an exchange with the belieft the past predicts the future (I have some faith in that, but it's complex). Bear in mind that if you'd bought the wrong market (let's say Nikkei) then if you'd bought in 1989, then time in the market becomes a question of 'how much time before I can get back out of the market without a paper loss). That takes no account of opportunity cost or inflation (inflation not so much a problem in Japan I guess. I think essentially, you're talking about your own experience (as am I) and that you struggle to move from one share to another. Maybe that's because you invest so much into your fundamental research that you don't have time to switch). These are just observations.
Can the valuation of Enquest be justified as against Serica Energy? The latter has a market cap of $956m as compared to Enquest's $375m. This is wholly absurd. First and foremost Enquest generated $300m of FCF in 2023 against Serica's $242m. Second Enquest has 175m of 2p reserves as against 140m for Serica. Third the production guidance for 2024 is remarkably similar 41k - 45k for Enquest 41k -46k for Serica. There is of course an important distinction. Serica has net cash of $96m as against Enquest's net debt of $410m. But the value of Enquest's tax losses alone are $500m. And the effect is that even after servicing the debt and paying BP for Magnus Enquest will achieve superior FCF to Serica for the foreseeable future. Serica has nothing to compete with the potential of Bressay and Bentley or the extraordinary long term potential of Sollom Voe. So I conclude that if the market were entirely rational and analytical it would award a much higher market cap to Enquest. I would say it ought to be at least $1.2bn. But let us put things a little differently. In 24 months time Enquest will also be essentially debt free. It will look remarkably like Serica except it will have the advantage of its still unused tax losses and almost certainly a large increase in 2p reserves as Bressay moves towards production. As it happens I think Serica is substantially undervalued by international standards (particularly the US) as well with its dividend of 12% and the commencement of share buybacks. It is only a matter of time though before the market recognises the completely unjustified differential between these quite similar companies. The far too modest share buybacks will commence before the end of April. The commencement must be announced by the company and the daily purchases must also be announced under stock exchange rules. So they clearly have not started yet.
Take a quick look at UKW (Greencoat). They have been buying back continuously since November 23. Truthfully there appears to be no improvement in the SP although obviously there is a monetary gain.
I have lots furiously doing the same but since Xmas my portfolio has dropped 14%....The FTSE 100 is at record highs but that is because a few have out performed ...
I just take the dividends and accept I am probably in a trap. Jumping about from share to share just makes the brokers rich.
We need a period of stability in the world and at present I cannot see how this will happen. Many years ago I worked in the film industry. There was a small Czech cartoon called 'Attention' . Two stone age men in skins were busy carving out huge clubs. When they had finished they sat back to admire their work and then prompty smashed each other over the head. It sums up what is happening today on the world scene...
In France, state spending is a massive 58pc of GDP, while the US, even with President’s Biden’s huge increases in welfare payments and industrial subsidies is still only at 36pc. A country which has usually been closer to Washington than Paris is now starting to drift the other way.
This is happening across the economy. As Tuesday’s shocking figures for public borrowing showed, even with punishing tax rises the government is still nowhere close to balancing the books, with a deficit running at 4.4pc of GDP compared with 5.5pc for our neighbour. And of course, growth is miserable.
France is expected to expand by only 0.7pc this year, on IMF forecasts, while the UK will only manage 0.5pc. The USA, on the other hand, is projected to roar ahead at 2.7pc.
The problem is that while we’re increasingly mimicking the French public spending strategy, we don’t seem to get anything like the same results. If you are going to have a huge, intrusive state – and of course at least a few of us would prefer that we didn’t – then at least you might as well have the French version.
For all its faults, it certainly seems to have one redeeming feature. It is effective. On almost any measure you care to look at the French government machine easily outperforms the British one.
Such as? France has a far better health system, combining social insurance with state provision, and while the French are angry that average waiting times to see a GP have risen from four days before the pandemic to 10 that is far better than this country, where the waiting time for a routine appointment is 19 days, if you can get to see a doctor at all.
We have huge levels of government spending. We have punitive taxes. The state micro-manages the economy, offering lavish levels of welfare, while constantly racking up more and more debt.
True, we don’t have a boulangerie on every corner, and we don’t have riots every weekend – or at least, not yet. But in almost every other way, however, as Indermit Gill, the chief economist of the World Bank, pointed out this week, the British economy has slowly turned into a French tribute act.
There is just one catch. While France at least gets results from its sprawling state, the UK seems to get almost nothing. We face a fate far worse than our neighbour on the other side of the Channel – French levels of tax and debt, combined with practically third-world levels of investment and public services.
It is one of the ironies of the last half decade that instead of turning into Singapore on Thames or mimicking American dynamism after leaving the European Union, the UK has turned into France instead.
As Gill put it, “the country that used to be most like the United States in all of Europe was the UK. And you guys decided to go and become a lot more like continental Europe. You look like France, not like the US.”
UK economy is turning into a French tribute act – without any of the hits
Matthew Lynn
24 April 2024 • 6:00am
Matthew Lynn
4
Sunak Macron
While France at least gets results from its sprawling state, the UK seems to get almost nothing Credit: Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street
We have huge levels of government spending. We have punitive taxes. The state micro-manages the economy, offering lavish levels of welfare, while constantly racking up more and more debt.
True, we don’t have a boulangerie on every corner, and we don’t have riots every weekend – or at least, not yet. But in almost every other way, however, as Indermit Gill, the chief economist of the World Bank, pointed out this week, the British economy has slowly turned into a French tribute act.
There is just one catch. While France at least gets results from its sprawling state, the UK seems to get almost nothing. We face a fate far worse than our neighbour on the other side of the Channel – French levels of tax and debt, combined with practically third-world levels of investment and public services.
It is one of the ironies of the last half decade that instead of turning into Singapore on Thames or mimicking American dynamism after leaving the European Union, the UK has turned into France instead.
As Gill put it, “the country that used to be most like the United States in all of Europe was the UK. And you guys decided to go and become a lot more like continental Europe. You look like France, not like the US.”
It’s hard to disagree. Public spending in the UK rose from 39pc of GDP in 2019 to 50pc during the pandemic, and it has now settled at 44pc.
Telegraph paywall.
Aying up for the bills. £87 billion a year – by the start of 2030 for defence, decarbonization of the grid will cost a few billions, where will they get all this money? Big deficits, more and more debt, growth almost non-existant....The tanks will drive with solar panels i guess....If we as civilians would be spending like Governments, we would 've been bankrupt decades ago.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/24/britain-faces-a-fate-much-worse-than-france/
Labour will have to deal with p
The pressure is building on this unfair Tax grab
Labour will have to deal with it somehow as reality bites back.
A court challenge must be coming
Serica’s Chairman is quite right of course but he’ll have his comments slapped back at him by announcing the maintaining of dividend and commencement of buybacks. It’s a no win situation other than for the UK Treasury .
SQZ results open with a sizzler:
“ Commenting on the results, David Latin, Serica's Chairman and incoming Interim CEO, stated:
"I am very pleased that Serica has delivered a strong set of results for 2023 despite significantly lower sales prices compared to 2022 and a full year of the UK marginal tax rate being at 75%. Any 'windfall' due to high commodity prices has long gone and the high tax situation is ill-suited to a mature oil and gas basin such as the UK North Sea. Its continuation will not benefit people in the UK either financially or environmentally.”
SQZ, announced results today and also announced a 15M share buyback which starts today. Not sure why ENQ has still to pull the trigger on these.
Enquest over 16p tomorrow
Who took that 600k print today? Saw baron investments say he’d topped up. Or could be start of buybacks
Nm
Exxon has a market cap of $476bn on FCF of $36bn in 2023. Enquest has a market cap of $375m on FCF of $300m in 2023. The market cap of Exxon is 1269 times greater than Enquest and yet its FCF is (only) 120 times the size. If Enquest enjoyed the same ratio of market cap to FCF it would have a valuation of $3.965 bn. I would not mind so much if Exxon had greater growth prospects. But it does not. FCF in the end is all that matters. That is money that is available for distribution to share holders. Either Exxon is absurdly overvalued or Enquest is absurdly undervalued or both.
Both up 100 points today. 100.50 to 101.50.
It takes size to move it that much imo and these are professionals. A very good indicator. They hear stuff before us. They've made money with dividend and a capital appreciation. They're in no hurry for the exit.
I wonder if our stock on loan has decreased over the last month or so.
Where are these buy backs - we need them - O&G dropping fast
I Spoke too soon
Looks like the new energy sector is being part funded by the old oil and gas industry perhaps we should pat ourselves on the back eco warriors and didn’t know it. As long as I make a few bob I can live with that.
Hi Frac, that's why I love a webcast or an AGM. You see the body language or when someone is really interested. You could see that it had alerted LK's political sniffer dog reaction. That will be filed for a later programme. 'Over-ambitious' is political speak for 'we got it wrong' or 'we won't get it past the public'. Labour will do the same regarding 2030. I'm sending off missives about the NEW 9X (2X onshore, 3X solar, 4X offshore).
This is interesting: https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/aberdeen-aberdeenshire/6440359/peterhead-windfarm-approved/
In the last auction that got anywhere (AR4) the strike price for floating offshore was £87.30 against plain offshore £37.35. The subsidy or strike price needed for the Peterhead windfarm isn't mentioned in the article. We know offshore has shot up so there won't be any surprises when the numbers required are published and the amount of 'revenue support' which is paid by all of us.
Brent seems to be reversing some of the losses made last week.
Everyone waiting patiently for Buybacks to start lol