Member Info for CJ66

I agree a couple of % is too short term reactive and as likely to choke off long term growth winners leading to disappointment. Burford at a quick glance appears to have had about 7 100p+ drops this year in between going from �7 to �11 (never mind �1.50 3 years ago) ! The one interesting thing is that Burford used to have very low volatility as it was always considered normal economic conditions / commodity prices etc were irrelevant to it's work - now it appears to go up & down with everything else.

Certainly looks a good but also slightly contrarian buy at this level now. With general US jitters, Brexit muddle = some genuine uncertainty about Labour getting in and meddling, + US playing hardball on allowable NG US profits, changing facing of the grid requirements, and even the conflict of owning & operating infrastructure all adds to more uncertainty than the National treasure from say 10 years ago. But like you I'm in hoping these will work through & also like Pennon which is over factoring in harsh regulator review coming up.

Good realistic update today that may have slightly disappointed some - but I prefer under promise, over deliver. To my mind the 50p is very possible by mid year - the 4th quarter shows what is now possible, and unless major weather disruption, the first 2 quarters have very weak comparables last year + price was $1238 H1 average, whilst this year it is currently over $1300 - which although not a big % is big extra profit feed through on largely fixed costs. Added momentum is using cheaper grid energy and a rapidly decreasing debt cost (between 7-10% interest rates) The new production line for 2nd half provides another potential ramp.

It was only that low fleetingly pre 8:30 - I purchased some at �1.67 at 9.04, and it was back above �1.70 by 9.30 I think you just have to look at the price available and think if it's good value longer term - a couple of pence either way are nice, but not the bigger picture. I was happy to follow Ory ! What has really changed about the company that has been between �1.60 & �2.20 in 3 months!

13th March for Final results. They did a trading update on 24th Jan last year - but I expect they may not this year as they have done a brief update with the share issue and short statement that 'all is well' with the Notice of results....

Not too worried, more perhaps a pause or drift as it has gone from �4 to �8 in a year. Gone back up on a reiteration of the positive trading update. Still a long term upward trajectory at present. Also not as many sells as shown - I purchased some yesterday at the sell price & it showed as a sell when it was definitely a buy!

Unfortunately this looks like the cartoon character hanging in mid air after going off the cliff. As long as they keep the dividend going - and guidance of circa �40m profit still looks 9p EPS, but where is it going - with the newspapers on a slope - they just haven't grown the alternative business - selling off acquired books and education whilst clinging to a notoriously tricky carrier market for smaller players - think DX, City Link. Turnover/profit of these is still micro compared to the papers & mags. I'd love to bag a bargain, but this may be the run out of road sharp descent point !

I think this time you will find it is more to do with placing 16m shares a �1.98, which just focuses people back to the accepted current value, as well as being slightly dilutive to earnings (8% more shares). The positive was they were close to market price and along with Director buys, just needs a positive news update or results to carry on the path upwards again!

It appears from an RNS release it was Carillion related - but they have clarified they have about �500k dealings with them, and a maximum exposure of �100k with most of the rest insured against. Some spin has been about talking to other parties anyway as many of these roles can't simply be removed - so although some exposure and the uncertainty is bad, it looked like it's more a hiccup than too serious - hence the relative bounce back. The big IF it can cover the dividend and start to grow profits again it could be a bargain !?!

It appears from an RNS release it was Carillion related - but they have clarified they have about �500k dealings with them, and a maximum exposure of �100k with most of the rest insured against. Some spin has been about talking to other parties anyway as many of these roles can't simply be removed - so although some exposure and the uncertainty is bad, it looked like it's more a hiccup than too serious - hence the relative bounce back. The big IF it can cover the dividend and start to grow profits again it could be a bargain !?!

Any ideas on what is driving this - no RNS or update, do they have a cosy relationship with supplying Carillion staff or something?!?

Don't rubbish this out of hand - they are often cyclical and have been up and down, and were 5p after 70p for a reason. I have also invested in Griffin mining up to 100p down to 20p now up to 130 over the last few years. Don't get me wrong I am increasingly positive and holding onto AAZ, but one thing to note If you look at the small print the Govt takes 12.75% of the gold currently, but once these are paid off the 'Group can continue with cost recovery of up to 75 per cent. of the value of commercial products, before the remaining product revenues are shared between the Company and the Government of Azerbaijan in a 49 per cent. to 51 per cent. ratio'. It's in the Annual Report.

Yes in Carlisle each year In answer to your question of why so diverse - it's in the history - a conglomerate more by chance and natural evolution over a long time. The same sort of history with varied results applies to NWF & Wynnstay (which are also worth a look for those looking for slow but steady) Apparently they were founded in 1831 - but all focused on aspects of farming and the areas evolved - in short animal feed (and just sold big flour business) evolved from an original food mill & baking / Engineering from mending farm machinery and move up the chain to increasingly sophisticated engineering with acquisitions / fuel - farm and domestic supply, then consolidating aquisitions..... I bought these about 15 years ago at around �2.50 before a 10 for 1 share split = circa 25p equivalent today. The real money makers bought around 2001 - end of the world foot & mouth for animal feed companies - shares dropped to 70p or 7p equivalent - I'm still looking for that crystal ball today - but can't complain with any of the above 3 companies shares purchased....

Shame about the dreadful price spread to reduce liquidity even further. It got up to 1270 buy / 1190 sell at one stage. I don't normally mind as you find that putting in a potential buy/sell it comes up with a much closer figure. However here, don't know about others, but TD/Interactive say they can only indicate the price as shown and will have to go to market on your instruction = no chance to make an informed choice and the actual price I did get was 10p improved = 5%+ spread - I suppose it stops short term traders?!

Couple of observations in response Some of this is probably price drift - which often happens when no news comes in for a while, and especially if shares are relatively highly priced. When I say highly priced I mean a PE ratio of 40 actual - rather than potential which could still make this cheap longer term. Finally it has risen like a rocket over the last few years and does hinge on especially 1 major case - meaning some caution is to be expected - it could rise much further if good news, or would tank if any bad news came out. On balance I'm an optimist and holding on for a greater likelihood of good news and longer term prospects....

No don't think it was either, and has come back a bit since the initial shock. However it is on a reasonably high PE ratio and with no profit increase this year and low single digit next year, I think it was just adjusting for lower short term growth expectations. Longer term it is a cash generating machine, ever since outsourcing the manufacturing, and has been around a very long time. I bought around 20 years ago at about £1.50, and this seems more a minor blip than anything more serious. I think they have also largely countered the sugar tax implications as well.

Just to be clear I'm not saying the price won't go down (or up), but it is doing so purely on the price of Gold rather than a case of no news update = price fall. At the end of the day this share is about the price of gold x how much it actually produces each year. Price of Gold is certainly under short & medium term pressure + I would also be wary of possible weather disruption that has sometimes occurred with AAZ winters in past years. All in all however I am not going to try and time the market, and believe it has a good chance of an upward production curve - but clever people will have sold, to buy back later...but for how much & when??

No News is good news! Patience, they don't need to keep updating the market unless something material changes - at present I believe the price is drifting down reflecting the gold price. I actually get more suspicious when companies feel they keep having to try and talk up proceedings. Longer term AAZ have been pretty realistic on events - even when they were not so good a while back.

I agree, this is a slow burner and some comfort in that it was 20p about 10 yrs ago + ever rising dividends! I have always felt part of the problem is that Property companies tend to be priced around NAV rather than eps. This has always been an anomaly to me, as the true measure should be what eps the ongoing rental income is. The NAV is fine on the surface but is only what it's worth at the time - I used to work for a property company that went from �8 to 10p as the values fell, debt was higher than value - banks demanded etc. With FPO it is not a normal property company as it earns fee income on funds leveraging others money, and does it's own property + dabbles in opportunities as well ! This means it could be argued it should be valued more on the lines of an investment fund as some of it's income is received whether property values go up or down. However some is dependent upon value uplifts. It is a bit of a hybrid - which is why like it, but it does mean the share price tends to follow the NAV and ignores the PE ratio even if 7 or 8.

Absolutely right - these are frameworks - with 22 covering the country, and each has about 6 bidders who would normally compete for each project. A framework makes no guarantee of work, and indeed you could bypass the framework and use somebody else. It is as you say a good sign, but you still only have a roughly 1 in 6 chance of winning each project - or the odds may depend more on how good your management is !!