Member Info for Alessandro

On Hargreaves Lansdown website: "All in, there are clear signs that the new management team are making progress and Unilever remains a quality business with attractive fundamentals. If it can deliver on planned cost cuts and spin-off Ice Cream without causing too much damage, then achieving mid-single-digit sales growth is on the cards. The valuation isn’t too demanding, but we still think it’ll take time before we see a material rerating."

You kidding me: PepsiCo (27), Henkel (23), Reckitt B. (19), Nestle (22), Colgate (32), PG (26) have a PE above 20 (apart from Reckitt). Unilever currently trading with a PE 18, with a positive outlook and a share BB program of 1.5 billion pounds and HL cannot see a rerating? I can see a 10% upside, easy. FOOTSE is going strong, so I would give ULVR a chance.

Surprisingly, at market open, IP declined marginally, less than DS Smith.

IP: Despite the revenue increase, earnings are down significantly, possibly due to the fire at the Mexico plant and the winter freeze (I did not look into the details, hopefully that's the sole cause of drop in earnings). The quarterly presentation mentions the acquisition of Smith and the offer coming in at 415p based on the SP and exchange rate on the day prior to the announcement. I hope the board of directors in DS Smith had a look at the Q1 financial results and are comfortable with the headwind in IP before advising the shareholders to team up with IP rather than Mondi. DS Smith has a tough decision to make.

Unilever stubbornly does not increase the dividend payout. Perhaps at the current valuation the BB seems a better place where to put the excess cash.

If they bought at 240p I assume they saw a good opportunity to acquire value through the BB program.

If the BB was to boost EPS and perhaps stop the SP decline then yes, a poor move. I hope for the former.

How risky?

At what time will International Paper publish their trading update? Was it expected for today?

Why wasted? The company bought its own shares, haven't we all here bought in RWS too?

The bull run didn't last very long innit

The share price may fall further, almost a certainty. However most of the fall is done in my opinion. RWS is making £45mln PBT in H1, which is quite a respectable figure and the current share price already underprices the company. That is... in absence of skeletons in the cupboard. The modest percent fall in revenue does not warrant too much worry at the moment.

The trading statement doesn't say much about the outlook. Customers are cutting costs, it doesn't explain it they are turning to cheaper service providers or simply reducing demand for services. In the latter case it will create a healthy backlog for RWS. RWS wouldn't have the information as that will sit with the customers.

It would be interesting to see how (RWS) peers are doing. Who are the major players in the filed?

Casapinos, yours is a bold statement regarding the PE of IP. Do you really believe that the share price should be half as much just because the GAAP earnings came in the figure of 300 millions, taking the dividend to over 10%? Do you expect investors to sell out of fear that 300 mln of earnings are the new norm for IP? Why would an investor sell the shares in a company making adjusted EBIT of $1.2 bln and with a market demand for packaging expected to improve throughout 2024, for the average Joe to come around and take the steal? Just to mention, the combined entity is expected to make $400 million savings. That is about the figure of SMDS FY net earnings. The share price for IP is going to be on the upside if and when the merger materializes. There are very slim chances to see IP's share price declining much further, and if that is going to happen I will be happy to load up more shares. I believe SMDS holders will see the valuation of their shares to be in the region of 400p and over in no time. This is just a market over reaction and a plain opportunity to buy the shares of a quality company at a 15% discount.

Has the bull run dried up?

How do you value a company that operates at losses? What is a fair share price to represent future value?

The holidaying frenzy will eventually subside/normalize.

It is premature to wish for 200p per share. I don't have a crystal ball but that's my guess at the moment.

Donkeyeeyore not at all, I hope it goes down to 120p for a good entry point, and get out at 160p.

In the current market 120p is totally possible

Sad how the first thing they will do is to lay off 400 people. Sad that another stock is taken off from the LSE.

Unfortunately the shareholders have been short sighted and selfish in a way.

Is the new generation chip developed and deployed by Meta Silica based?

https://ai.meta.com/blog/next-generation-meta-training-inference-accelerator-AI-MTIA/

Why has the share price dropped so dramatically?

Ed1Mil you have no idea what you are talking about...

Chart?! What the chart has to do with the performance and strategy of the business?