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After seeing my buy out pension plan consistently underperform from year to year with Standard, it’s no surprise to see the falling share price result of poor management. I do hope the fund managers are on performance related pay . At 5he moment, they are delaying my retiral plans. Haha. As a former Norwich Union salesman, I was a,ways getting Standard life figures flung at me. But they were known as “ selective’ insurer. It’s high time, they were a selective investor. Cash buy backs are NOT a wonderful thing for the private investor ……..speaking as an Aviva investor!
I read with interest your comments on the theft of Eroxon. Of course, I just had to check EBay, yes! There are current Five sellers of the product. All seem to have priced it within a certain range. I’ve had my morning chuckle when I checked one sellers other items for sale……….namely, pipe bending equipment. You could t make it up!
Good luck in our investments. I’ve a holiday to pay for.
Once more the general insurance side of the business grabs the headlines and produces the jitters amongst the traders in the Stock Exchange. This just proves the limited scope of the traders view. It’s DL that’s having the problems. I’m sure Aviva aren’t a carbon copy. But as , it’s a golden opportunity to top one’s holding as previously written. Thanks DL.
I got a phone from one of those hollow sounding call centre bodies. “I’m calling from USA, a company called (odd sounding) Capital Inc. You are a registered owner of Aviva shares. As the company is ripe for takeover, we wish to buy your shares……”. Thanked him for his concerns and hung up.
First experience of a financial cold call on a matter for which I do have a vested interest. I haven’t sold my freeby flotation shares and I’m happy for there return to divvy.
Equiniti were quite to quick enough to get my holding consolidated last week. But still waiting for the cash(and divvy) to arrive. Computashare who looks after my original share holding from the flotation days, we’re super quick. Both divvy and cash in bank account this a.m. have reinvested. Cheers everyone.
I had a wee look at Cevian Capital. Yes, founded 1996. It is regarded as a hedge fund to start with. Of course , the mantra “poorly managed for years” has been used a few times in its ventures. I may be cynical but it’s activities are tantamount to asset stripping. Nothing remotely clever. Of course Aviva are sitting on a pile of cash. They are insurers for crying out loud. But like the criticism of the of the mutual life offices ,surpluses weren’t always distributed as well as they could be . I’m happy that the share price is heading in the right direction and have always thought financial services to be a medium to long term hold........certainly longer than the lifetime of Cevian.
I was certainly on strike in 1997 at Aldershot Telecom House, when part of the 150 team. In fact, I was on the picket line which was beautifully observed. It was for the day and sad to say, I cannot remember the main reasons for it....but it would have been about non-signed contracts .
Senior management certainly took it on board and no further action taken. I hated doing it as I had never withheld Labour in all my working days in previous careers. I lost faith in our union reps who were found to be more jobsworths than other jobs worths. But enough, we certainly didn’t get our pay rise and holiday entitlements increased because the company were being generous. Rant over.
Yes. I thought I was hard done buying at 0.49p back in the day. I just gritted my teeth and put it down for a five year hold, a la Buffett. When the price dropped to 0.25 p, I slung in some loose change from other divs. Then vowed to spend money on scratch cards. But BT is recovering and now this! I’m beginning to regard this share with a bit of affection now. It was a punt and I thought I had researched it well enough. I think I’ll wait until the summer.
Hooray! I’m now back where I started! I foolishly jumped in with both feet, investing in Astrazeneca and FUM. Both sank like stones. AZN eventually recovered and I hopped off......before it went rose again .doh! But heeding Warren Buffets advice, I hung on to FUM and it watched it bomb even more but did throw some more money in a what the hell sort of way. So, a year later it’s finally getting back on the track it promised these years ago. I did not put the house on it but I won’t be jumping off the bus just yet............
Openreach to be nationalised. Well, just watch that SP plummet tomorrow.....there are plenty of safeguards for investors, especially institutional ones. But Labour need to get in to do that. It may not happen. But who thought the “bumbling” ex mayor of London would get the top gig!
A couple of years I did buy into this at 49p and was rewarded with “your original investment may fall as well as plummet in value” scenario,
. Luckily this could never be the basis of short to medium term investment strategy....I have relied on the FTSE100 for that. I just gritted my teeth and hoped maybe some recovery towards half value or even the giddy heights of 2/3’s original investment. And lo, it has come to pass. All the signs are increasingly favourable but they were at the time of my original investment. But I will hang on again as it’s not “the 5 year minimum term” that Warren Buffet espouses on such stock. There is a definite buzz seeing the rise, even though for me it’s playing catch up. Good luck to all holders of this one......to early to wish everyone a Happy Christmas? ??
I was in the day to day position of having to deal with the Kier Group in my building facilities job with a large telecom some years back. They were a shower. Talk about cowboy builders. It was always a joke with them. 9 out of ten jobs were referrals back. Even door hanging seemed to be a problem. I got an invite to their London offices for a function. Yes, it was still good fun. I asked one of the senior guys if they realised that their work was basically substandard. He just grinned.”’got friends in high places,chummy.” Said he. A month later, our company pulled the plug on them . A days notice we gave them. Oh, how they yelled. This is how quick things can happen in building services . They are doing (ripping off) NHS work and if NHS is sold off, Kiers will be under the microscope. If anyone has money in this outfit, take it on the chin and sell....just my opinion.
I think we can all tell War stories on the careers that we had. I will always remember my first week in Norwich Union where the office manager apologised for “throwing me in at the deep end”. I was hard pushed to know what pool he was talking about......twenty years later, my experience was more than enough to have a ball in good old 150 Call Centre. Workers will ALWAYS be pressured into doing that little bit more.......our education and health systems have plenty of that.
It would be nice to know that our elected representatives had that pressure.
Meanwhile, I think BT is a decent share for appreciation in value and for a decent divvy. The turnover is huge and produces a decent profit. Best wishes to every holder.
I hope for the rises that investors are looking forward depending on results of course. But I’ll get excited when they reach 45p plus when I stuck my toe in the water ! I did a wee top up at 20p....oh, the hopes!! But I’ll hang on to Warren Buffett advice, “If you can’t hang onto a share for 5 years, don’t hang on to it for 5 minutes.” Luckily, I invested same amount in Alliance Pharma, which has balanced the books somewhat. Good luck to all.
As one who dipped a toe in the Bio/Med stocks, I got well and truly soaked after buying at 55p. The head went firmly into my hands as the SP sank to single figures. I really felt like bussing over to the labs in Guildford and raising hell! But as Warren Buffet said if you feel you can’t hold for for 5 years, don’t hold for 5 minutes. Luckily, my other punt has gone the other way and I’m evens for the moment. I suspect it will return to my original stake and if the promise is fulfilled, it will have been worth the headache. Good luck to all investors....meanwhile, I will keep to divvy producers.
It's all been good positive stuff today..........apart from unfortunate souls who sold too early. Speculation on a blue chip share? Well, I never.......no, my gripe today was the paucity of news on BT results on the BBC Business web site. It seems that the goings on in that overpriced cake shop, Val's Patisserie, is regarded as being more news worthy. Plenty of that. I bought BT for the long haul and the divvy. A bumpy ride but that is the way of shares.
I feel for the employees who are obviously working so hard to get the products on stream. When the head man opens his mouth comes out with bilge, it's just so disheartening. The CEO of any company should be its best salesman. I happily took a punt with this company at 45p and Immupharma for similar, last year. It's been staggering but as Warren Buffett says, if you can't hang on to a share for 5 years, don't hang on to it for 5 minutes. I'm hanging on and will diary this thread for a review in 12 months.
Sorry, Bloomberg article....https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2018-08-08/here-are-the-top-six-bt-group-ceo-candidates
Speculation on GP's successor abounds. In Yahoo News, Liv Garfield gets a mention. Thankfully, it was mentioned that Openreach got heavily fined during her tenure. I wasn't impressed in her messages to the masses in videos when I was working. Fast talking, peppered with swearies. Sorry, I lost the article link but there were some interesting candidates. The company needs someone with political savvy as well industry knowledge. Oh, I would add an accountancy degree as well....er, are we free, Lord Livingstone?
On share dealing in general I think it Warren Buffet that said "If you can't hang onto a share for 5 years, don't hang on to it for 5 minutes." Although I bought my BT shares at their lowest, I did put a bit more in FTSE 100 companies with a decent divvy. Of course growth is great, but the divvy at my age is the thing. I never had a BT share when they were valued at their top.....a few guys didn't budge and are probably rueing that still. If you want a real roller coaster , have a look at Bio and Medical research companies. White knuckle stuff! Have done the ISA and breakfast stuff this year but risk spreading will continue...as it always should.