The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring financial educator and author Jared Dillian has been released. Listen here.
The World Health Organization recently suggested it causes a "mild disease", based on the evidence it had seen. However, reports out of South Africa are starting to jar with this analysis. Children severly sick with Covid are filling up hospitals in the region. A surge in Omicron cases in South Africa is coinciding with a flood of severely sick children entering hospitals.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/omicron-warning-as-hospital-wards-in-south-africa-filling-up-with-young-patients/ar-AARwxIq?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531
It's high summer in South Africa and they have plenty of other serious problems, but omicron is catching up with them judging by the link posted by nutmeg.
In the meantime, an easyjet flight to Spain was almost empty.
https://metro.co.uk/2021/12/06/jet-leaves-almost-empty-amid-fears-rules-could-be-fatal-for-industry-15724591/
Singh, you are forgetting that the Russians shot down a Malaysian airlines flight over the Ukraine a few years back and a second Malaysian Airlines plane went missing, quite possibly shot down by the Chinese or Indians. The Iranians also managed to shoot down one of their own airliners a couple of years back, thinking the yanks were about to bomb them.
I doubt that will happen to an easyjet flight though cos they are mostly on the ground already. Not a good time for the sector. Btw, there was nothing good in the easyjet results. The business lost £1.2bn and there was nothing said about the current quarter, so that usually means bad news. All travellers into the UK now require PCR tests less than 48 hours before (not lateral flow) so big expense for budget fliers. The market will give some sort of verdict in a few hours. There's a lot of goodwill towards easyjet, so maybe there won't be much of a reaction.
So ftse12, I'm just curious about why you'd rather talk about posters than easyjet. Do you think that easyjet hasn't lost £1.1bn this last twelve months? Do you think that easyjet is making money now even though they refused to publish guidance on the current quarter, or do you agree that easyjet is losing money hand over fist and will continue to do so for the rest of this year due to omicron? (If you want to talk about something other than easyjet, maybe you should join a social chat club.)
Whichever way you try to slice and dice it hexam, the losses are enormous. Revenue of £1.4bn but costs excluding fuel of £2.2bn and fuel costs of £371m; there's a £1.1bn loss right there. What on earth makes you think that with much of Europe in lockdown there are more planes flying? Easyjet withdrew their update for this quarter for good reason - it's nothing but bad news.
hexam, practically the only cash coming in is from shareholders paying for the rights issue and new loans. The business is losing money every day. If you think a £1.1bn loss for the year is good news, you should perhaps look around the stockmarket to see if that's normal. Most companies like to make a profit and payout dividends.
The skies over our major cities are clear today. Very few planes flying. Most of Europe is in lockdown to some degree. Events are being cancelled everywhere. easyjet is guaranteed to be losing cash throughout this quarter, and we had no update on its progress. In January when the Q1 report comes, I think it's obvious we will see a continuing massive loss. The omicron news looks bad - people are being re-infected whether they've had a vaccine or delta covid. That means more deaths most likely, here in Europe. I think summer will be a disappointment again.
northscot, you are the worst liar on here, deliberately misleading people. Today you are celebrating the 'big swings' as the share price goes negative again. This forum is supposed to be about discussing the company and its prospects, not your childish playground antics of abusing other posters.
Net debt went down a little by £200m but only because shareholders pumped in another £1.1bn of cash through the rights issue. Take the rose-tinted goggles off my friends. easyjet is losing money hand over fist. Omicron will unfortunately keep the cashburn going. Next year there will probably be another cash-call.
No hexam, you are still wrong. Headline loss was over £1.1bn. No matter what way you dress it up, easyjet is losing a ton of cash every week.
hexam, maybe you should take the rose-tinted goggles off and actually read the results. easyjet will be burning cash for the rest of this year, judging by the omicron data which is coming out now. The shares are seriously overvalued.
No Hexam, you are wrong. It's easyjet's own words from the full-year results just published:
"As a result, cash burn (on a fixed costs plus capex basis) during 2021 was GBP36 million per week on average, outperforming the guidance for GBP40 million per week. easyJet paid a further GBP455 million of customer refunds during 2021 (2020: GBP863 million)."
No update on current trading but the cash burn of £36m a week for the year suggests another half billion pounds will be lost by the time we get to the end of this quarter (31st Dec). Easyjet seems to have written off winter and spring. Omicron will kill the summer trade too. The shares are very overvalued on any earnings basis. Just rose-tinted optimism keeping them up at the moment.
This is going to be a hard hit for EZJ on Monday, onto of the results which are likely to be bad. Could be we'll see the sp in the mid £3s by the end of the week. What do people think about the wider market? All indices continuing down?
And you northscot, are blatantly misleading investors here. The £7.22 peak prior to the new shares becoming tradeable was an obvious peak and marked a near 100% return to the pre-covid market cap. This share will inevitably head down from here as the RI shares are sold off and reality bites in terms of NO PROFITS. You are trying to hold back the tide with your desperate ramping of this share and abuse of people pointing out the obvious. You will not make any impression on the shareprice and eventually the ongoing decline will cause you to become silent. In the meantime you are trying to mislead private investors here - that is a bad thing.
A lot of noise on this thread, at least half from long investors desperate to hold the tide back. The point has been made several times that the market cap of EZJ (and most of the other airlines) is nearly as high as it was at the peak in January 2020 before the pandemic but the prospects for profits are a long way away, debt is high, losses ongoing and dividends apparently years away unless there's another equity raise (with perhaps a final big hit to the shareprice).
Personal insults are not helping the genuine investors here understand the situation, but the shareprice direction should be obvious now. The trading update shows that losses are halving for the last quarter, but they are STILL losses. The winter in Europe will cause covid to resurge so I don't see the EU nations relaxing much more than they have already in terms of testing and no-fly rules. If there's a big surge in covid in even one country and a return to more stringent flying restrictions, that will cause a big panic in airline shares across the board. The risks and the absence of profits have to make EZJ a sell in any sensible person's portfolio imv. When it hits a low sometime next year, maybe then it might be worth a recovery punt, but for now, the shareprice doesn't reflect the grim prospects imo. Good luck everyone.
Interest rates likely to go up, stagflation or massive inflation and recession on the horizon? I am having trouble getting a direction on gold just at the moment. Currently equity markets seem to be in a bubble; inflation, interest rate rises and Evergrande contagion triggering a bubble-burst are all on my mind. Does anyone here have a good sense of where gold is likely to go?
It's a growth stock right now. Hasn't paid a dividend for three years. That hasn't stopped it gaining over 300% from its low last autumn. Kier still has legs. It only needs to get to about 170p and basic flows takeover - promotion to the ftse250 and index fund buying. If that happens and KIE then reports profits and £50m in cash it'll probably reach £2.50 to £3 imo.
How long before excitement? Not long. Less than three and a half trading days left before we see the full year results in all their glory. I am expecting to see a significant second half year profit for the first time in two years. First half was only £9m with the tail end of covid costs and restructuring. If the second half is more like a normal year before the crash here - anything over £40m to my mind - this should take off on Thursday morning. GLA.
https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/contractors/mace/kier-and-morgan-sindall-among-winners-on-14bn-framework-23-08-2021/
Kier and Morgan Sindall among winners on £14bn framework.