Member Info for CaneToad

Yep, momentum here has died, along with that in most other legal firms. DWF looking especially nasty, with lots of gearing. I won't be touching that one.

"I personally don’t care what anyone says, THG, BOO, ASOS do not deserve to be 90-95% down off highs. It’s just stupidity. No wonder Ashley is buying."

Another possibility is that it was stupidity for them ever to be priced so high...

Attractive divi; lots of upside; solid balance sheet; good results which exceeded expectations.

Solid as a rock, encouraging results; attractive dividend.

Seeing the shorts reduce and takeover talk has gained my attention. Looks very risk to be holding this short now.

It looks like the momentum has faded. Almost everything in the sector is now looking bearish, so I've closed 80% of my position.

"Now with O&G prices back to about average levels, I believe the WT may disappear pretty soon as it’s done many times on similar previous occasions."

There is absolutely zero (0) chance of that happening...

Either this is a fantastic bargain or somebody knows something that we do not. If it falls much more, which one of those is going to start to become irrelevant as the new investors also exit after hitting stops.

"Look at CU / Zinc prices 5yrs out Vs CAML SP."

Personally, I find that copper/zinc price forecasts are lousy, even 1m out, let alone 5y... IF they're good, I can see CAML much higher than £2.30, but who knows!

Guys, you can safely ignore 'Mr Porsche'. His modus operandi is to open short positions and then to descend on the LSE board and use the word dogxxxx a lot and whinge about the UK - as if he's going to have any effect is laughable... but he thinks he's spome sought of market oracle - more like a spiv talking his own book.

@Porsche1946: "Aviva a capital destructive dog. "

Man, why do you hang around? Presumably you're short?

Looking at the long-term chart for Aviva - your statemnet is incorrect... Almost every financial stock fell after the highs of 2006. Aviva has traded more-or-les flat for more than a decade now.

It's easy to find lots of shares that have fallen since their peak. Almost all Japanese stocks are still below their 1990 peaks.

This no longer looks like an imminent recovery, nor is there a decent dividend, while profits have collapsed. There are too many other interesting companies to invest in, to be stuck in a 'cheap', deteriorating company.

The results look very weak.

I see no reason at all that the sp can't return to 200p at the very least, but 300-400p is achievable over 1-2y if profitability is maintained and debt is managed. I have no interest in grabbing a 20% gain and it makes no sense from a RR perspective.

Results look good to me; revenue/PBT up; plenty of room left in the RCF. New revenue streams coming online. I was expecting a technical pullback after RSI spiked, though granted it was a bit bigger than I thought. There's lots of upside remaining.

I remember big buys all the way down with Boohoo that people said were a 'vote of confidence' - but the fact is that these funds had no more information than any small PI and their timing and execution is usually much worse. I'll wait to see how the situation unfolds first. If you're in it for 5y it will make no difference of course... but it makes a huge difference if you're not.

I see the possibility of a more negative market reaction if/when the market starts to realise the exposure that LGEN has to the house building sector.

Whether or not it is 'worth the risk' for an insurer to be building houses is irrelevant to me. e.g. M&G farm out the management of several business parks, because it would otherwise muddy the waters of the nature of their core business.

The fact of the matter is that LGEN is no longer just an insurer, which is a very low risk business. I have just noted the comments on their heavy exposure to the housing/constuction industry in the most recent broker note:

9-Mar-2023 (Independent Equity Research): 'We remain positive but concede that :&G embeds more risk than we had assumed'

I'll now want to see how this develops before adding anything here as could be a material development.

I'm quite surprised that they developed the modular housing division themselves (if I understand it correctly) - i.e. they are basically running a house building business within LGEN....

That is a significantly riskier activity than life insurance/investment management.

I wonder how much of a writedown there'll be due to closing the modular housing division. It looks like a sizable operation, with 450 jobs going.