Put it behind you and move on, take it as a positive that had you sold tomorrow it may of been a bigger loss, you dont want to know how much I have watched disappear since its highest peak. It's a shame you couldn't go long but therein lies the problem for so many small investors. The kicker is when you watch it climb way past the price you sold for, boy it hurts but that scenario seems a very long way off and is just wishful thinking.
Whichever way you look at this share, it may be prudent to remind people that just like Rolf Harris said its not cool to take advice from strangers, dont buy shares and expect to make money. It's a gamble, spreadsheets, forecasts, charts however you choose to pump your cash in it's a gamble, swings and roundabouts, winners and losers. At the moment this share is similar to one of the fruit machines that people just keep pumping cash in to because it's going to pay out the jackpot on the next spin, or if not that spin maybe the next, and so on. Do what you need to do but never expect or assume you will earn money. Like Ray Winstone says, when the fun stops, stop. Let's be honest the fun stopped a long time back. I am holding as I have seen this before with the same shares I hold now the last few times this happened, for me the dividend has been reinvested back in for 24 years. I am bitterly disappointed and expect things to change to improve the situation, with that in mind I have to patient.
Thing is at the moment BT is funding Openreach, if it can officially get rid of Openreach then it can concentrate on making money and invest its money where ever it wants, this would leave the problem of providing a fibre network on the back of a 100 year old pile of clockwork scrap to Openreach. The thing is the BT share price is affecting both aspects, we all want the SP to increase, we all want the dividend and according to Ofcom we all want Fibre, could BT sell its engineering side to Deutsche Telekom to enable it to go flat out on the fibre to the premises perhaps? Would a foreign owned engineering firm have any problems with Ofcom? I dont think so, it would be a big smiles and handshakes front page news fully backed by our Prime Minister, after all this country loves to outsource. Before you all have a melt down do not forget that what BT have done with Openreach is not what Ofcom wanted, and BT have been allowed to get away with it for quite some time now!......
What we saying here? you have to be on top of your game and meeting performance targets to get redundancy, while the people that sit with a finger up there nose looking out the window all day get to stay, well that just sounds like a form of punishment, or a clever ploy to try and get workers to increase their performance on the carrot chasing thought of getting a pay out. Sounds like a corporate psychological warfare approach and dare I say it possibly underhand and nasty, if your job role is suddenly taken away or disappears overnight then surely you have been made redundant and should expect up to to two years money? or do you get offered a lesser amount and thrown a toolbag and told to go fix peoples phone lines and internet or something?. Jeezus where is the honesty with this lot?. I have been made redundant very recently, all research and development on internal combustion engines has come to an end, however, if you want to apply for a role in the battery technology department you can leave and apply for that when the roles are advertised, well thanks for nothing but I will take my redundancy and pension thank you, and that's my career finished and early retirement 8 years ahead of schedule. There was no mess, no fuss and nobody cares, least of all me! I started my regular shift on a Tuesday evening and was paid off and gone by Thursday.
I think it's time that Patterson goes to the press and makes the country fully aware that Ofcom are the reason that a national roll out of Fibre is never going to happen, the company appears to be having to cut its own throat to save itself instead of being assisted and invested in to give the dribbling masses exactly what the government is dictating that they require. Lets be honest, running a company is all about the money, everyone wants as much as they can get, all the many other service providers are after money, they dont have to employ many people and they dont own and maintain the network, why should BT have to pay for others to profit? If BT gets any worse the entire country will be held to ransom, getting more frustrated with service degrading. Ofcom are stopping the licence for BT to print money, so what do they expect? Patterson needs to go down fighting to Ofcom and air the dirty laundry about the British government con that has taken the "slaughter the monopoly tactic" way to far. I predict a future takeover being announced to meet the needs of the dribbling masses, it must of taken over 100 years to get the telegraph system to where it is today yet BT have to scrub all that and provide a new network alongside the existing and have it all up and running by close of play Friday to enable the 10 a penny, two bob slice of the pie licensed operators to get nigh on free access to it. I think the BT long term future plan and shot at the heavyweight fibre title are over before it's begun.
This share is a dream subject for optimists and naysayers. Up and down like a *****s knickers, swings and roundabouts kind of share, the cull is not new news, it's been going on for around a year, slim down for success they say!, manipulate slaughter and confuse the workforce and then leave with a golden handshake then the new suit turns up and does the same thing again and blames the previous regime. Round and round and round and round again. Im in long, ding dang dong. �1.99 on its way?
Rodmitchel, politics? please explain who mentioned politics, do some research regarding the company's strategy, draw your own conclusion as to who is going to foot the bill, its not only the staff, it is consumers as well as shareholders. BT and Openreach will be seperated and the road to recovery will be a long one. The current Board will be long gone and the cycle will repeat itself, the dog has finally caught up with the tail it's been chasing for the least 30 years. Still, as long as we get our divis eh Rod? I dont like the morals that are being openly displayed by BT and I will state my opinion whether you like it or not, as for your never ending childish name calling, just pathetic.
From what I can gather the main concern of BT is to remove you from a pension scheme and stick you in to a saving scheme, it is going ahead regardless of the ballot outcome, which will be a foregone conclusion, due to a fantastically average 2 year 3% pay rise and a very small but touted as large improvement to the low interest saving club. The problem is the people that are going to follow the carrot are the same people that will be short changed the next time there's a "we cant find the money" problem, they really are just moving the issue down the road and round the corner, just out of sight. For a company that is in debt to the tune of nearly 10 billion before you even mention the 14 billion pension deficit the saying "to big to fail" rolls off the tongue very easily, and the higher the share price, the bigger the debt will become, of course none of this matters as long as the shareholders get there divis. Until of course the next scandal, fine, ofcom intervention. If you are prepared to vote to accept a pension that is even �1.00 less than what it was then you are setting the goal for the company, it will become the norm and will be part of the yearly wage review, it's exactly what has happened to my pension. You are about to be robbed and dry shafted, but I can tell you are proud of this from the tone of your message. Nobody should ever accept or agree to taking less than what they are owed, unless it was you that worked in Italy or are a cant say no to the company manager or company union rep then wake up and smell the coffee.
Pacey, can you explain how anyone is going to be better off? you mention older guys, how will they benefit from there pensions being closed to accrual? or are you talking about the pay rise, which is being offered as a sweetener but is nothing more than what can only be described as your average pay rise. How can they benefit, and the company reduce its pension deficit at the same time? All I see is the same bloody pension disaster waiting to happen to the new pension, scrub that, saving scheme! in 1o years time, are they just moving today's problem a bit further down the line and hoping nobody's noticed...........I dont get it, can you help?
Pacey, can you explain how anyone is going to be better off? you mention older guys, how will they benefit from there pensions being closed to accrual? or are you talking about the pay rise, which is being offered as a sweetener but is nothing more than what can only be described as your average pay rise. How can they benefit, and the company reduce its pension deficit at the same time? All I see is the same bloody pension disaster waiting to happen to the new pension, scrub that, saving scheme! in 1o years time, are they just moving today's problem a bit further down the line and hoping nobody's noticed...........I dont get it, can you help?
The last mile is the stumbling block, the last mile is copper, well some of it is, there's a lot of aluminium and this is just not capable of or fit for high speed transmission, never was and never will be, pay for it to be replaced? no chance, just keep Openreach busy patching it up, let another company provide the Fibre to the home and then let BT rent it out same way they are doing now, same old story, everybody jumps up and down demanding it, yet nobody wants to pay for it, they are rinsing every last penny out of it and so they should. Government and Ofcom are trying to force BT to invest, why should they unless the USO and price restriction shackles are removed. It's a shame as instead of a slowly built future proof full fibre network owned and maintained by one company, the UK is going to be fed by a hotchpotch of wannabee telcos that will cherry pick the areas they can make a quick buck from, this is happening now and it is down to Government and Ofcom. I am in deep and believe the recovery will come, there are going to be more huge stumbling blocks soon, one step at a time the company is re inventing itself for the right reasons, it needs to to survive but is slowly but surely losing its attachment to copper, but it cant be seen to be doing that and certainly cant be shouting about. Bt will not be recognizable as the company it was in as little as 10 years, my hope is that in ten years time BT will be the backbone of the national UK Fibre network. Those that still think the copper network is where its at are 75 years behind the times. You will see blocks of flats where telephone exchanges once stood and super markets will be charging 10p for lifelong shopping bags made of copper.
Rodmitchell, what network are you referring to?, if its the copper network then you are mistaken, copper is dead, BT own the largest defunct copper network in the UK, they are ringing its neck the best they can before fibre comes, cant you see that? who in their right mind cant see it? why do you think there Gfast product is any good, it's less capable and will cost more than other licensed operators already provide, and nobody wants that because it's to expensive for the average Joe, just like steam trains, analogue TV and British manufacturing, all gone forever, they cant scrap it because the price of copper would fall through the floor immediately, why do you think there all talks of giving the network to the pension trustees as security for the money they are paying back. They dont want the associated costs of having to build the UK's fibre network and then get forced to rent it out to other operators for �2.00 a year, they are sitting back waiting to get rid of Openreach so that when they are forced to get rid of Openreach, not sell or farm out, forced to get rid of , once this happens BT can sit back and relax as they can then start forcing the Governments abhorrent tyrannical Ofcom brown shirts to do something about it, ie get the government to pay for the UK's fibre network, probably via the normal process of increasing tax!. I think a lot of opinions on this forum are much to short term. The British Government cant want what they like but they cant force a PLC to do what they want, that's what the position is at the moment, it's a stalemate and neither side can currently be winners.
The company's issues are slowly being addressed? has GP announced he is moving on then? has the pension issue been solved or shoved under the carpet? the moment the back slapping stops will be the green light for Ofcom to force the full separation of BT and Openreach, as what BT have done at the moment is nowhere near what Ofcom wanted. The game hasn't even started yet. Openreach, and any major Fibre network building are now being constrained by BT on purpose, it is being used as a political tool by the people in the ivory towers. Check what's been going on in Australia, New Zealand and USA, we are following the same trait exactly. It's going to be a very long recovery, but recover it will. BT are giving the illusion they dont want Openreach to go there own way, however that's exactly what they do want, they have got to get rid of the Network and the USO, once that is sorted it will be full steam ahead. They want to be a bit player for now to stop the Monopoly word bouncing back in, that is why they are not going at it hammer and tongs, once bitten twice shy.