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I've taken a penny loss there and shall wait. US markets selling off, I believe in response to data showing economic growth has slowed in the first quarter and inflation is rising.
Seems to be a good thought to me fleccy. Can't believe how many useful posts I'm seeing today.
Something else to bear in mind, with reference to dividends and short positions, the entity holding the short position is liable for the dividend.
If the dividend is held and the price doesn't decline sufficiently in the meantime; Ako capital as an example, holding a 0.91% short position on ex dividend day, will be on the hook to payout nearly £5 Million pounds in dividends to whoever they borrowed stock from.
Here's a chart summarising Ako's short positions, I used the day closing price to estimate the number of shares purchased and how much they've so far paid out in divi's:
Fund . . Date Changed . Close . Change. . . . . Quantity. . . . Short Price
Ako . . . 7 Mar 2024 . . . . 107.5 . . 0.09% . . . . . . 8,956,646 . . £9,628,394
Ako . . . 23 Feb 2024 . . . 106.9 . . 0.12% . . . . . 11,942,194. . .£12,766,206
Ako . . . 6 Feb 2024 . . . . 107.05 . 0.09% . . . . . . 8,956,646 . . £9,588,089
Ako . . . 23 Jan 2024 . . . 115.6 . . 0.11% . . . . . 10,947,012 . . £12,654,745
Ako . . . 11 Dec 2023 . . . 131.35 . 0.50% . . . . . 49,759,143 . . £65,358,635
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.91% . . . . . 90,561,641 . . £109,996,07
They would also have had to cover the Ex Dividend payout for their 0.5% short position on the 28th Dec 2023, coming in around £1.15 Million. Ako appear to be well in profit from their first short position taken out on the 11th Dec 2023.
I'm only guessing with the above since I've never shorted a stock, I'll happily be corrected if I've misunderstood something.
Stupmy
I say it as a number of more experienced posters have made that point on different occasions ..
On the face of it I would be surprised if the new CEO would cut the DIV at this stage, given they expect to maintain year end guidance of FCF at the upper end of £1.2 billion and her presenting more or less the previous CEO result
What I suspect may be her throw out could be what her expectation of div cover to be...as well as any view on capital allocation for the new financial year
..and...whether..they decide to make any provision for the court case outcome
If there is a fine at some point there may well be room for an Appeal, plus..depending what the fine might or might not be...to pay ..over a period of time
I didn't know that Poker, is that solid or just 'probable' it sounds murky enough to be real to me.
For those interested. The SP has formed a rectangular pattern. The upside breakout might take us to 117 or above, the downside to around 94-95. The shorts are obviously looking for the downside.
"I've spotted the occasional 0.47, .48, .49 "
I usually see those after coming down from above 0.5%, but then you wont know of any further reductions from that..
Many people have said that it is the NET short position that is notified
So..if an investment bank is 0.9 short but 0.6 long....then the net short of 0.3 isnt notified in that case
Which is why you dont see many Investment bank notifications
Would a monstrous competition tribunal fine be sufficient to stop or decrease the divi?
Divi will be held imo... obvs DYOR... but reason I think it will be held is much more to do with inflation... holding the divi is actually a real terms cut for the recipient stock holder because there's more cash out there in the system overall from QE (the bulk of the reason we have persistent/elevated inflation levels, along with higher import costs due to weaker £ and extra trade paperwork costs too from brexit fallout)... the ample revenue generation (supported by inflation) flowing into BT's coffers will easily support holding divi this year. With a currently low SP holding the divi gives bonus of maintaining the motive to hold/buy the stock too. I cannot fathom a scenario in which the Divi is not held.
And whilst they hold the money from selling short, they pay a small interest to the original share owner. they are waiting for a lower price to buy at but the longer the price holds more or less at the price they sold for, the longer they are waiting and more interest they have to pay ?
And if the class action news is positive, and if the Divi is held........
BT has fullfilled something on the chart that was of interest to me SK so I have bought a small long at around 105.3 in my 'canary account'!
I don't know SK, mabye some sites can give tighter data, perhaps it's what's left after a reduction from 0.5% or above. But what's for sure is that the stated data on most sites underestimates the short positions. Also the data is usually 48h out of date.
Cheers for clarifying that Stupmy - as I wasn't 100% sure and I've spotted the occasional 0.47, .48, .49 - can only assume these appear on some sites due to rounding, perhaps?
You're correct SK, 0.5% and above is notifiable. Below that most short tracking sites do not show data. That means that you can't know the true size of the short positions. I'm not sure for Shorteurope.com so those interested should check.
Stupmy - "If those positions are forced to close, then it would likely create a short squeeze that could bump the BT price up." - That's what I am counting on! As I'm continuing to buy up small tranches, irregularly whenever the SP hits my price targets.
ElDoctore - almost... my understanding is there's only a requirement to make positive declaration when the shorter in question is above 0.5% of the stock in circulation (please correct me if I am wrong). So in addition to the short % positions listed on here there can be many other smaller short positions out there too (and it can also be true there may be very few other smaller short positions out there - as it's just not a requirement to share them).
Https://screenrec.com/share/tDn2XHu1YL
That's a breakdown of short positions and the holders currently. You can see they've increased a lot since Sept last year. For the moment the SP has dropped a little. If I'm correctly interpreting the chart (which is not a sure thing) then the shorting institutions are losing money for the moment. They're not in it on a whim, so they feel that they'll win over time. However they might be wrong. If those positions are forced to close, then it would likely create a short squeeze that could bump the BT price up. With enough 'ifs' you could put Paris in a bottle.
Hi, can anyone explain the definition of "short positions" in BT please? Currently this is at 2.72%. Does this mean that 2.72% of all the shares in circulation have currently been borrowed and sold in the market (with the hedge funds holding all the proceeds), but that these shares will need to be handed back at some point to their owners (by the funds buying new shares) ?
Amongst other things, like improving the performance of the Business division....the market wants to see the new CEO deliver her stategy and captial allocation plans ..and have any court case liability risk removed
New rankings have Sky first ( best ) but BT next three places Plusnet,EE,BT worst performance from Virgin Media….by a mile! looks like tales of woe in press overstate problems in customer service.
Drahi and Kretinsky (has bid for IDS/Royal Mail) are bit stupid. Drahi bought his large stake here at a far higher SP.
Price to book is also below 1.
They're putting every spare penny into capex for FTTP and 5G rollout, it'll be a while before the dividend will increase.
Pass cash to shareholders via a special dividend gets my vote.
FTSE at (or near) an all time high, BT near an all time low, sums up the stock market, corrupt and manipulated.
Loss making companies worth multiple billions, profitable companies unloved and undervalued.
Oh dear, Strategy Group has two years to come up with a grand new investment idea to spend the cash that gets freed up when the roll out is done, another sports channel perhaps?. It would be more hopeful if she doubled down on cost reduction.