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In-re a slump, remember LLOY is a bank – they make money by lending it. In a slump, more people need loans and overdrafts and with base rates at record lows, for LLOY, money is cheap. Result; very high margins therefore profit. Just look at the APR rate on your credit card statement! If you own shares in a bank you are getting a rake off of that.
You might be right. Hindsight of course is a wonderful thing! I topped up with LLOY at the start of the week. Thought the price I paid (52p) was OK. Clearly an expensive mistake! Hey ho! I'm holding these long term for the divi though. Shell are down a lot. If the low prices are still here in May, I'll have another opportunity.
The shares were always held for the divi. Of course, with hindsight, I would all have sold at ÂŁ6.26 had I known what was going to happen.
However, remember the curse of the Cyclops! The Greeks had many myths and many variants of them. One variant was this: Cyclops was a great and powerful hunter and the Gods offered him the gift of “second sight” which involved them taking one of his eyes and putting it inside his head and placing the remaining eye in the centre. Thus endowed with “second sight”, Cyclops had ability to see into the future. However, Cyclops discovered – too late – that there was a big downside to this: He was able to see the date and time and the circumstances of his own death!
As one of those with a big paper loss – thanks!
Long story short: I inherited the shareholding from my Dad in 2003 who had inherited the shareholding in 1952 from my granddad who bought the shares (along with others) following a farm sale (the family’s farm) in 1922. Probate valuation July 2003: £3.08 per share! I remember them climbing to £6.26! Since then I've bought the 38p rights issue and added to the stock when the prices have dipped – like now. Average cost of my shares: 76 pence. I'm hopeful I'll break even – eventually!
Why do I hold them still: The family's banked with Lloyds since Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee.
Lloyds has come a long way since the HMG directed takeover of the busted Halifax. Lloyds's fortunes are directly linked to the Brexit crisis. IF the Brexit crisis is resolved to the benefit of the UK economy – i.e.; a no deal Brexit avoided and the UK to “soft Brexit”(EEA membership) or remain in the EU – then shareholders will see the value of their shares rise. Whilst the shares are at these depressed levels, buybacks are a “no brainer” - the more the merrier!
Amen to that!
I purchased additional LLOY shares today below 52p. These add to a shareholding that was bought by my grandfather in 1922. It's been added to and taken from over the years. The family farm had it's bank account with Lloyds since the days of Queen Victoria.
Things will come good.
PPI Deadline on the 29th.
We await what happens on Halloween!
Thanks for admitting that you're 57% RDS. I'm 40% and thought I was overweight.
Many, many sympathies to the thousands of employees and the many, many subcontractors adversely affected. Also those long term shareholders who had not bought recently. As for those who purchased recently on the basis that the shares were a punt � well they were but your gamble has not paid off. Hopefully you will have adopted the rule of not gambling any more money than you can comfortably afford to loose. As for those who have actual share certificates, you can always frame them.
The only people I can be certain will gain from this will be lawyers! If we were civil litigation attorneys in NYC' I think our wives would all have smiles broader than the Cheshire Cat's and they'd be off down to Macy's with our credit cards! Herewith the Indy's report: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/new-york-sue-fossil-fuel-companies-global-warming-divestment-a8152711.html
Herewith a quote from my stockbroker, Redmayne-Bentley LLP: “The best return in 2016? Probably a three-way bet paying over £4.5m from an initial £1 stake. That was the potential winnings one bookmaker was quoting on Leicester City winning the Premier League, the UK voting for Brexit and the US electing none other than Donald Trump as its next President.” This is the thing with stocks and shares. We DO NOT know what is around the corner! Recently, I was faced with an unexpected decision. I hold Phoenix Group shares and when the papers arrived, I had two decisions to make: 1. Do I take part. 2. If so, where do I get the money? Given the size of the shareholding and the cost of taking up the rights issue in full, I had to sell other shares. I had effectively two choices: 1.RDSB (sell 20% of holding) 2. Temple Bar Investment Trust (sell 50% of holding) RDSB is a very good dividend stock but I was overweight in it. Temple Bar is an investment trust and as all participants in this forum know; “Spread the Risk” is the key piece of advice for all of us. Thus I sold RDSB. Given the latest prices, some would say I made the wrong decision, but I would refer all to Redmayne-Bentley's quote.
People are in danger of making a huge mistake when they think that the numbers of electric vehicles on the world's roads are going to “take off”. They are a politically driven fad. The problem with these cars – and also the hybrids lies where it has always lain insofar as electric traction not connected to an overhead cable of “third rail” - batteries. The latest batteries have overcome the three physical challenges (capacity/size/weight) associated with lead acid accumulators. However, they have two seriously limiting aspects that cannot and will not alter: 1. The materials used in these batteries are relatively scarce. 2. The batteries are expensive to produce. This means that insofar as these vehicles populating the roads of Africa, Asia and Central and South America are concerned, forget it! As for commercial vehicles such as buses, lorries (trucks to those who use US English) and vans; electric traction 'ain’t going to happen! Of course, the directors of RDS know this!
Electric cars and hybrids will not become universal. Reason; the materials that are used to make the batteries are not that common. Long term, you have to think in terms of economic development of those non developed countries – mainly in Africa. These countries now with large populations will eventually become developed – to a greater or lesser degree. There are a lot more people wanting the “western lifestyle” of car, fridge-freezer, TV, computer &C. This means that the market for oil will not decline long term. Long term, RDS is a good bet as it supplies a product that will be needed. You see, it's all about energy: there is a huge amount of energy chemically stored in a mugful of petrol or diesel in comparison with the energy stored in a vanadium battery which will be the size of a container to store the same amount of energy. Bye-the-way, don't get too bothered about all this talk of CO2 warming the planet. It isn't.
Grayling, My thanks for sharing your decision with cyberworld. I was wondering what sort of price range the rights have been trading at. Now I know. I too have taken up my rights and like you hope it is a good decision. I raised the money by selling some Shell “B” shares; for although they pay a good divi and the £ averaged cost (to me) of them is way below what they are currently trading at, as I am overweight in Shell and spreading risk is the conventional wisdom – I sold some. Fingers crossed!
As I understand it, cars like the Nissan Leaf have some form of government subsidy due to the high cost of the batteries. The choices for electric cars is between nickel–metal hydride (NiMHt) or lithium-ion (Li-Ion) batteries. It is all very well when electric cars are relatively rare. Subsidising vast numbers of such cars is unaffordable. Furthermore what about all the commercial vehicles? Petrol and oil will be around for a long time yet.
What we all have to keep in mind is that politics are driving this more than economics. When the politics change so will the oil price.
Look at the size of that company. In GBP it is 689 billion! Or thereabouts! When it comes to selling of something the size of Royal Mail that is one thing. But £689 billion! Would have to be done over an extended period and then there is the old adage of supply and demand. To shift £689 billion of stock not only would one have to do it over several POs one would have to do it in most of the major stock markets (London/Paris/Frankfurt/New York + China? & Japan?). Saudi Arabia has no stock market of any size to speak of. In fact for investor confidence they would probably have to incorporate and domicile the company in major location such as London. To shift the stock they would probably have to under value it considerably to sell it all.