Member Info for big-blue

I should have added, always be careful not to confuse short traders who also have offset positions with spreadbet traders who tend to not cover the other way out of get rich quick greed mentality.

spar, not sure you are quite correct on the short seller losing millions. He will have hedged and picked up as much on a rise as a fall. Furthermore, overall on the balance sheet, how much did he make on the 15% drop when omicron 'went live'? I would say there is a reason why he is so wealthy and successful, he knows how to cover each way and any loss will be minor against the overall trade in any one share.

Sorry this has nothing at all to do with IAG and sp, but some might find it interesting.

The critical point as mentioned a moment ago is DIVIES. The big pension funds and investment houses invest to get dividends as they have payout obligations, they are very limited in how to raise funds through compound investments. That is why they will tend more to shares with good reliable divie payouts and only play with relatively small amounts in the buy and sell profit market.

On that basis BA has taken on government backed loans with the understanding whilst they are outstanding that dividends can not be paid to IAG, and from IAG to shareholders. So either the dividend prospect for IAG is long winded whilst any credit drawn is paid back and the deal is cancelled, OR IAG raise funds form the market to be able to cancel the credit deal and return to divies much quicker. It is difficult ahead of results to gauge whether then main block shareholders will push the board to begin dividends earlier or not. I would estimate that cash for pensions and wealth investment payouts will be more important and so I guess the balance towards an RI with the results is greater.

Of course, IAG could cut BA out, and return to divies but with a much smaller group where it could buy up a different major long haul carrier with the proceeds from BA sale.

IAG could try making dividend payments but without a contribution from BA, although I think that would be so small as to not be worth the admin fees.

OK, back to talking about IAG....

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/singapore-committed-to-reopening-borders-even-as-omicron-spreads-1.1705280

Singapore opening up. The more countries put out these statements, there more it emboldens others to make the move.

https://www.khaleejtimes.com/coronavirus/uk-not-yet-in-a-position-to-live-with-covid-19-senior-minister

Like I've said on many occasions, Gove is the principle block to returning to normal and getting all the stupid useless restrictions lifted. He has an influence across departments and is a master manipulator. Gove must go! Get rid of the restrictions, return to normal.

Well I will expect positive market reaction and another couple of % added to the sp tomorrow.

"The analogy would be that Biker is standing 100 meters away from someone firing an airsoft pellet with a 5mph crosswind and getting hit to have any effect."

If that pellet finds the eye..................

My metaphor was to illustrate the point. The odds are of course much lower but the point remains. And it isn't just death, it is long covid too which is debilitating fro a lot of people. Otherwise, improve your chances markedly by having the vaccinations billions have had with no issues.

Reading across all the news stories around the world this morning it is sad to see so many countries are still engaged in nonsensical campaigns to stop the spread of omicron. There is now more than ample information showing it to be far milder, frequently compared to just another flu, and hospitalisations and death rates well within capacity of health systems. But so much is invested in the positive test results without looking beyond this very crude method of analysis. It looks like most countries are riding through the variant in their own independent manor and simply ignoring all information from elsewhere to date. Most of the world is completely fixated in infection rates. This cycle must be broken otherwise we will be going round this circle many times over the coming years for colds, coughs and flus, not just limited to SARS-2 variants. If there isn't some central leadership to set the terms of reference for lockdowns to be relative to hospital overnight cases with the actual disease, we are in danger of locking down forever at this rate. The world seems so completely disconnected. What happened to the WHO, the UN, G6, G12, G20??????

good for you biker. You do realise that you are playing the covid roulette game every day with 3 out of the 6 barrels loaded with live ammunition? And throughout the pandemic the graveyards have been filling up with fit and healthy people who contracted covid and died from it. Your choice to not have any vaccinations for anything. But every day, you spin the barrel and play the game again - every day from here on in forever because covid is no part of the world we live in.

You might be one of the lucky ones, every single day...

Yes, somebody has pulled up the existing covid exit plan and suggested to the Times it is about to be implemented immediately without consultation and that qualifies a panic response with lots and lots of hysterical arm waving.

It is a fake story and I would put not a fiver, but a tenner on the story being placed by some SNP minion who saw an opportunity to fan a negative and put the Westminster government in a backfoot. And if I remember rightly there was a very angry exchange in PMQs last week with some SNP man who got very angry about something - is this the pay back?

And as for the idea of floating ideas in the press to test the waters before introducing as policy, utter complete rubbish. Political parties use 'foundations' and 'research groups' to test market ideas on focus groups. The parties keep a long, long arms length from the process to avoid the Community Charge debacle in the 80s where the policy was poorly researched before being 'floated' in Scotland first before the rest of the UK. If there was to be any policy change like altering the testing regime it will be generated in consultation with the expert groups first as a cover in case there was a backlash. A minister may say it would be good to remove the isolation period but would then say they would have to go by scientific advice or similar. It is in this area though that the expert community has become political, knowing the influence they have, and have been giving advice more for their own agendas such as chasing money pots, kudos, power play, public exposure, vanity, vanity, vanity - all is vanity. Omicron has presented a dilemma with ministers capable of doing the maths or in contact with people who can discovering the data analysis has been suspicious at the least. Ministers in that situation simply implement a policy change having spent the previous week rehearsing all the objections and spend two days touring all the studios and editor offices.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/19834454.nicola-sturgeon-slams-plan-axe-free-lateral-flow-tests-uk/

This story probably explains more what is in the Times this morning. Sturgeon is on the back foot, has been wrong footed by Westminster over appropriate regulations and needs to get back to point scoring quickly. So invent a fake story, give it apparently credible legs, leak it in confidence for a 'heavy' to put out. This is a muckraking political story almost certainly generated outside of the tory party.

Wobbles, I think the great unwashed are doing the job of turning off track and trace themselves and not waiting for government. Omicron is now well understood and can not be hidden away from. For those that don't vaccinate, they play the death game and the long covid game. They can not be helped and they will be purged leaving behind a fitter and stronger population. The vaccination is there for them, for free.

Your post flipper is a perfect example of the next big problem moving to post covid. The desire to hold on to the pandemic as a familiar 'safe place'. You make plea that it is too early to know anything, we were past that in mid-December. We are well on the way out. That will mean a significant change back to pre covid normality which for people who have trouble dealing with change, as you appear to be, is a difficult transformation.

But if you think the world is going to continue to be subjugated to mask wearing, isolation and restrictions to ordinary freedoms, you're in for a shock. People all over the world are kicking off against all the pandemic restrictions, have not been taken in by the lockdown lobby over omicron thanks to SA telling the world what was really happening with omicron and will not let an isolated group of cowering weak minded activists to rules in some new world order. Anybody who stands in the way of the masses as they march back towards precovid freedoms is simply going to be trampled on. The usual fashion with campaign groups constantly getting in the way of initiatives will be gone in the new world order. Agitators and campaigners blew it with the pandemic with the anti-vaxx, pro lockdown mantras within expert community and political community. A subtle shift is taking place back to majority rule.

Promulgating lies designed to stop people being vaccinated leaving them vulnerable to death from a known killer virus is involuntary manslaughter. None of the vaccination lies are ever raised in the formal academic debates where they should be integrated because they have already been interrogated over decades and numerous trials. The most recent type of vaccination already had years of research behind it. And what was the alternative?

Hurtle; https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10382693/Six-million-people-follow-anti-vaxxer-lies-social-media.html?ito=video_player_click

You're being watched, you're being categorized, you're being identified. The families are going to have their day in court, and they will be getting a lot of high level support. Your footprint is all over the internet. There is nowhere to hide!

Yeah keep the discussion focused only on issues that will directly the environment the business operates in that could affect the sp. No 360, just 2.5 degrees of focus. Anything else is superfluous.

errr.... if the gloves clash with the gowns, we can't have that!!

You keep that profile of yours as visible as possible Hurtle. The campaigns of the future will thank you.

You need to read up on what a vaccine is, how it works and what the limitations are. You might just see that all this high flying objection and proof of foul play is based on falsehoods of what vaccines actually do. I don't recognise what that article is actually talking about - certainly not a 'vaccine'.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/tennis/article-in-filing-to-australian-court-novak-djokovic-argues-vaccination/

Australia has rules and regs for border access. They are freely available on many websites to look at. If you turn up at the border without the correct documents as required, that's it. It is very interesting to hear how so many news outlets are rewording this to say that if the tennis association gave him clearance to play, then the border should accept that as a visa. He obviously didn't meet a border policy requirement and they have attempted to bluster him through with a lot of waving arms. I hope if fails and the law as it stands is applied.

I also see a bit of politics here. The Australian PM is right wing as far as various media outlets are concerned, like the BBC and Guardian. He is not fully on board with climate change and therefore an enemy to be removed. So the story is being twisted to appear to be the PM directly blocking Djokovic despite supposedly having clearance and this to be received as a bad negative thing to be used to against the PM and party at the forthcoming election. But seems Aussies are fully on board with border controls and throw him out for invalid visa. BBC were ramping it up a lot this morning.