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Some very big blocks of shares voting against the reappointment of some directors and accepting the accounts. Anyone know why this level of disaffection?
And what exactly might 'normal' levels be for this company which now has a whole bunch of disparate assets, big debts, minimal turnover, a lorra, lorra staff and an untested board/senior management?
The thing about analysts is that the clue to their intelligence is in the first two syllables. Look at today's research. Westhouse is showing BWY at 1411 and Liberum is showing BWY at 1990. That a 580p difference. Why should anyone take what they say seriously?
OK it's official. I don't understand markets anymore. Bellway posts a 73 per cent increase in its dividend and gets marked down almost 40p. United Utilities will have its growth seriously capped by Ofwat to 2020 and they get marked up. Why bother with research - pass me my pin!.
Spare a thought for the poor workers! The last interims said that staff count was up from 20 to 50 and more were expected to be hired. THey must have been fed the same false promises and hogwash as we investors were. What kind of Christmas can they expect. What on earth possessed ULT to buy Screenetics and Waterloo when they had no money! I don't know about treating depression - ULT clearly doesn't have a cure for lunacy.
Oh dear, not another week where we test the 40p level again. This will be the sixth time this year. We've always moved up from there which suggests there's a long term stake-builder with some nice fat iceberg orders. But it would be good if we could get some upside momentum going for EPO. It's been 50. That's where we should be headed. Can we have some news please BoD!
FinnCap's forecast of 84p is all very well but what they don't say is when. There will be no serious revenue, sales etc until 2016 so why are they punting this so high now? I do like their prospects and it's probably worth a long term buying plan where you can average out your purchase price - but don't expect to cash out at much of a profit for a long while yet. One for the ISA methinks.
I would think that the horrors of 2008-2009 are still fresh in BoD's mind re over-gearing. I'm not unhappy about the placement/fundraising given they've just picked up 160 Fleet Street with 43 per cent occupancy. WKP's average is 90. If they can continue to find decent sized, well priced, well situated property at these occupancy levels and re-vitalise them then prospects will continue to look good in my view.
I like this acquisition just in front of the interims Wednesday. The Fleet St building is running at 43 per cent occupancy, way below WKP usual occupancy levels, so plenty of room for upside. Fleet St is also a great location - good address and half way between City and West End. Hoping the interims on Wednesday show more progress as we push on towards 700p. This is a great stock.
Today's interims explains it all. Poor trading conditions in UK and Europe leading to a profits fall from £37.3m last year to a forecast £35-£36m this year. No real prospect of improvement flagged either. Not sure it's really worth hanging on for recovery, could be some time, unless there's a potential takeover in the wings but who's the buyer? Yield is OK assuming they hold the divvi. Should do at these profits. I suspect BRAM need to announce a programme of cutting loss-makers and costs but that doesn't square with their acquisition programme. Would imagine they'll get a grilling from the IIs in the next few weeks!
426,000 sold at 42.25 today. Perhaps that's the overhang that's been keeping SP down recently. I can't imagine why any investor would be a seller of EPO right now , it seems to me this stock is on the cusp of great things.
Interims are due Nov 18. Meanwhile we've had a number of very positive announcements re the Pzifer deal, approvals etc. I reckon the interims should be excellent and show this stock to be seriously underpriced. Anyone got any downsides we should be aware of?
C7 - this option trade is very common. Basically you get allocated a block of options at a nominal price. When you exercise the option you incur an immediate tax liability. So you sell a chunk of your allocation at the market price to pay the tax. Wooly's right - the directors end up owning more stock than they did before. This kind of option is a kind of tax efficient bonus - i.e. you avoid paying the NI contributions you would have to pay if it came as salary. But, as I've said before, they would be even more popular with PI shareholders if the exercise price were set at higher than market - then everyone has an incentive to get the SP up.
I think it means that firms which make losses can carry those forward to offset tax on future profits. The footnote just means they are not including any figures for future tax offsets in the current accounts. In effect it means there's a bit of extra hidden value in EPO, e.g. if anyone wants to take them over.
Some decent buys going through on the back of the results - £89k and £36k and some others. The increase in total revenue was a great number but much higher costs too are a slight concern - they will need to keep a lid on those. Not easy to predict a break even yet though. A few more contract wins will help. I can't see any downside to EPO other than a catastrophic IT failure so slowly stake building here. I expect to have to wait for the next half year numbers now before any major lift in the SP, unless an institution likes this enough to take a big position.
If your only reason for not buying ALK is the fact that two directors have chosen to sell less than half of their exercised option quota that seems a bit thin. If they had sold all their new stock then yes - dubious. But they didn't. The fact that these options were priced at 0.5p means they were little more than a tax efficient bonus payment. Personally I think options to directors should always be priced at higher than the public SP when granted. But that's another story. In general there are a far more compelling, long term growth aspects to ALK which seriously outweigh a few directors' sales. It looks very cheap right now. But we will need some news from the BoD soon if it's to recover back to 50p
THanks Velo. You may be right as a chartist but I'm not a chartist, preferring fundamentals. And anyway everything's trending down just now! Just watch EPO for a while though and check out the interims and any new contract/acquisition RNSs. You could even trawl back through the new contract wins RNSs - there are some impressive names there.
Anyone looking for a very strong growth stock which seems to be immune from the general market malaise could look at EPO. It's basically a global money transfer system which is run by the incredibly smart ex Goldman Sachs Hank Uberoi. He's turned it round from a private funds transfer systems to a wholesale facility which the banks are buying. I suspect, but don't know, that they have got to critical mass and I think the promise of breakeven in 2015 is on the way. After that it's exponential. Interims due sometime this month - well worth a look. Meanwhile much of the rest of the market is c**p. The European Commission,.ECB etc needs to revitalise their economies before we drop back into recession there. FTSE 250 is really suffering as there's a lot of medium sized companies dependent on exports going nowhere right now. I'm underwater on almost all my 2013-14 buys so don't come to me for advice!! Decent high yielderss are my only defence.
Sorry, re previous quote, I forgot to add that many brokers will not necessarily trade J P Jenkins stocks so it is harder to buy/sell. But not impossible. But if your broker or fund manager doesn't trade on JPJ then come the delisting they'll sell you out.