Member Info for DONVANVLIET1

Probably explains why all telco prices are up today.

Is it just me or does there seem to be something very different about this latest upturn? Could this be the long awaited turning point? Only time will tell.

Zico72 - What evidence do you have of higher fault rates and why, if they are at all, are they rising? I have read and seen nothing to that effect. And what are the 'many more issues facing Openreach' that we don't already know about. I'm intrigued to know.

skier1..."The FT does not mess about"
Au contraire...don't be fooled into thinking that such a heavyweight broadsheet has all of the facts or, indeed, even a small percentage of the facts. I was once in the eye of the storm in one of their headline stories which ran over three days. I was privy to the real facts and I can assure you that the level of accuracy in their reporting was abysmally low (10% at best). The rest was simply pure invention. Don't forget their mantra is "Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story".

Am anticipating fireworks tomorrow if the story has legs.

EMMJANE - 5 Directors have just bought £2.7m worth of shares.

The SP is now in the realms of LaLa Land, with a total disconnect from reality. The not inconsiderable directors' buys bear testimony to this. Looking to add 100,000 should it drop into the 80s.

Fleccy - I should point out that I am an economist by training and used to handle macro-economic forecasting for a major multinational, amongst other roles. What we are witnessing here (with global production and commercial activity falling off a cliff edge) is in a different order of magnitude to anything witnessed in the past 90 years. The 2008 financial crash was extremely mild compared with what we are experiencing now and what the world will be experiencing over the coming years. Sure, some sectors will bounce back from this nightmare, but others will take a decade to recover. Some may never recover at all. Many commercial household names will go to the wall. There is no way of sugar coating it, but unemployment will rise exponentially and many of the newly unemployed will be homeowners with no means of keeping up mortgage payments. Hard to believe, I know, but the supply of housing stock will simply outstrip demand over the next 5 years, resulting a fall in prices (good news for those first time buyers who still have jobs). All in all it will take at least 10 years for the world's economies to restore some semblance of equilibrium, given that corporate and government debt will be at all time highs. I take no pleasure in painting this picture for you. I would love to be wrong, but all the indicators are pointing to sustained recession (in other words a depression).

Fleccy, I beg to differ re house prices. The housing market will eventually take a severe hit, simply because unemployment will sadly spiral. This will eventually result in repos en masse. Whilst there are short term protections, such as mortgage holidays, there will inevitably be long term repercussions to the current epidemic. And remember that throughout history pandemics are never concluded in one wave. There are on average three waves, although I sincerely pray and hope that this is the exception to the rule.

Toff - "That should set the shareprice tanking".
You all too conveniently ignore the elephant in the room, namely the compensation both companies will be seeking from the various sports organisations for failing to deliver their products.

Toff "What makes today’s fall all the more galling is that it fell in large volumes- which reinforces its southerly direction."

Correct me if I am wrong, but weren't c47m of those shares (placed yesterday at £1.275) part of the overhang, following BT's termination of its ADR in the US on September 23rd 2019? From where I am standing that did not make it a normal trading day. The fact that it closed appreciably above the placement price was, for me, heartening.

Well the cold hearted City clearly doesn't like the removal of domestic data caps during this unprecedented crisis. However, it fails to see how this will enhance goodwill towards the company and, who knows, may encourage others to switch over to BT from ISPs who are still maintaing their caps.

Sorry Lamtree, but I don't do excitement.

I think today we witnessed, at long last (after all they are a little slow in the City - I know as I dealt with them for years), how the investment community is beginning to revise/reassess its view of BT et al. It's no longer about judging companies on their increasing revenues and bottom line profitability, but more about who is going to survive in the medium to long term and emerge relatively unscathed from this growing global crisis. I fully expect BT's SP to show increasing resilience as the crisis worsens.

Not for one second would I wish this on the world. However, I once met Professor John Oxford in 2003 (I believe he has since retired) a specialist at the time in infectious diseases. He was often hauled out in front of the cameras when the SARS and MERS outbreaks occurred. He insisted that it was simply a case of when, and not if, a global pandemic would sweep the globe. My point is that we are possibly on the brink of one and the impact commercially would be catastrophic (the markets are clearly already fearing this). It would undoubtedly trigger a global recession, if it is not stopped in its tracks, and some companies that are household names today will simply go out of existence, or be severely damaged, as their cash flow dries up (several airlines, cruise lines, holiday companies and several high street restaurants and shops could fail). Everything, I'm afraid, is predicated on how long this outbreak lasts and whether it alters consumer behaviour drastically. Pandemics can last for years (one of the the Black Death outbreaks lasted for four years in Europe - an unfair and not like for like comparison - I'll admit, whilst Spanish flu in 1918/1919 afflicted the planet for two years, with a catastrophic death toll, incuding one of my uncles). My point is that the City will soon have to revise its thinking about companies and their ability to weather the storm. If the outbreak, God forbid, does morph into a global pandemic there will inevitably be a revised list of Winners and Losers and one of the Winners, I would strongly argue, will be BT.

starresnstoff - If matches are played behind closed, as they already have been in some parts of Italy, then BT's Sports channel could be a beneficiary.

Sooner or later the investment community will wake up to the fact that BT (and others like it) are safe havens in times of extreme market uncertainty. Whilst there will inevitably be some impact on BT's bottom line, should a pandemic take a grip, it will only be marginal compared to those companies operating in the travel, entertainment and bricks and mortar retail sectors. And should sports events take place behind closed doors (as has already been the case in Italy) then pay per view revenues would rise. And if people, in their panic, increasingly stay indoors (self isolating) and avoid socialising generally then the primary means of communicating and entertaining will be, in the main, telecoms based. So for me I remain extremely relaxed about BT's medium term and long term prospects as a trading entity (regardless of the SP, which as far as I am concerned resides only in the City's la la land and not in reality). Eventually BT's nightmare will end when the City eventually (which it will do) wakes up.

I note that the Americans are not letting the Huawei issue go. Regardless of whether their fears are baseless or not, surely BT (and other providers) have a case for compensation for losses incurred through equipment replacement, either against the UK or the American government. Jansen has already conceded that the cost to BT will be c£500m over the next 5 years and that figure is currently based only a partial replacement of Huawei equipment. What if that figure climbs to a 100% replacement dictat, just to appease Tango man? I'm sure BT's legal department is already working overtime on this one.

Gollum2 "The £ 3000,000 employee loss figure is not made up soley of sharesave and directshare schemes."

Wakey, wakey.......£300,000 or £3,000,000? Which is it to be? Or are you simply a walking random number generator? You should consider replacing ERNIE.

It looks like UBS is trying to outdo Deutsche Bank in severing all links with reality, in their race to the bottom. I remain massively relaxed about BT's medium to long term prospects and patiently await a return to market sanity. As I've indicated before I have had personal dealings with some of the people behind these brokers' reports and good percentage of them would mount a serious challenge to David Walliams in the Children's Fiction category.