The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode with London Stock Exchange Group's Chris Mayo has just been released. Listen here.
Jambone the interviews are open to interpretation and therefore irrelevant, the content in PRN/RNS's are what's important.
To understand the content of the RNS/PRN updates, it's probably easier to pull out the key points.
Method C
"Method C in testing environments has favorably demonstrated predictive ability in c. 30% of the cases, if an input to SHA-256 will produce a winning hash, resulting in a potential saving of energy."
"The fundamental feature of Method C is its ability to predict whether an input to SHA-256, the core algorithm for Bitcoin mining, is likely to generate a winning hash, or not."
"The current average predictive performance of Method C in a testing environment is nearly 30% , meaning that SHA-256 will avoid processing an input when the oracle will assess, within the current block, or the adjacent future Bitcoin blockchain blocks, that it is highly unlikely to generate a winning hash, namely almost 30% of the times."
If I'm understanding Method C correctly, QBT are saying that the Method looks at the newly constructed Block, and 30% of the time successfully determines whether or not a winning Hash is possible. Can someone explain to me how that would work in relation to live mining? Where the miners have choices about where to insert Nonce data, and changes in Bitcoin difficulty alters the probability of finding a winning hash.
In Vodafone's case I believe share buybacks are probably the way to go, whereas I took a different view in the case of Lloyds with over twice the issued shares in circulation. I suppose the easiest way to decide whether or not buybacks are worthwhile, would be to determine how much they'll save in annual dividend payouts vs how much they could earn in interest by banking the €4 Billion.
Vodafone has 28,818,683,808 ordinary shares of which 1,739,701,451 ordinary shares are held in Treasury.
Dividend bill before buybacks would be:
(28,818,683,808 - 1,739,701,451) x 4.5 Eurocent = €1,218,554,206
Dividend bill after buybacks at 70p (€0.82) per share:
€4 Billion-0.5% =€3.98 Billion (stamp duty)
€3.98 Billion/0.82= 4,853,658,536 shares purchased
(27,078,982,357 - 4,853,658,536) = 22,225,323,821 shares in circulation after buyback
22,225,323,821 x 4.5 Eurocent = €1,000,139,571 annual dividend payout
Difference in dividend payment after buyback:
€1,218,554,206 - €1,000,139,571 = €218,414,635 (17.92% annual saving)
If they banked the €4 Billion, much would depend on the interest rate they could negotiate. I have no idea how much interest corporates can earn for loaning out their cash, but I'd guess it isn't without some risk. If they negotiated a return of 6% it would pull in around €240,000,000 a year in interest, which would probably be accounted for against how much they are paying out in interest on their debt and is more than they save in dividends from the buybacks.
Interest received and paid feeds directly into the Free Cashflow calculation, whereas dividend payments are deducted afterward and feeds directly into Net Debt. If Vodafone's share price goes up they'll get less shares from the buybacks, and I've also guessed the interest rate they might get if they banked the cash, and there may be very good reasons why they're better off with buybacks, so take everything I've typed with a pinch of salt.
I'll happily be corrected if I've misunderstood something, or got something wrong.
Between Drahi and DT, they own around 37% of the company. Drahi's average cost per share is well above 150p and DT's average is above £4, I doubt either of them would sell their stock for 150p; Because they own so much stock, any prospective bidder would need to acquire their holdings at the start of a bidding process.
The previous charts assume stock prices and dividends stay the same over the period, halving the dividend yield, like Vodafone have just done, doubles the catchup time.
The charts aren't meant to be a real world example, they are aimed at demonstrating the power of dividend reinvestment when the price drops.
"Why even be in the FTSE 100 at all with a divi yield below the risk-free rate and no growth stocks"
Actually reinvesting Dividends is an form of growth, especially when P/E's are low and dividend yields high. BT ticks both of those boxes. A while ago I built some charts to show the difference between two Fleccy's in parallel universes, in one Universe the price halved. In Fleccy 1's Universe the price held at £2 after the initial purchase, whereas the price halved in Fleccy2's Universe.
Both Fleccy's bought 50,000 shares for £100,000 at a purchase price of £2 a share, Fleccy2's shares saw a 50% drop in price soon after purchase. Both Fleccy's reinvest their 7.7p a share dividend year after year going forward.
Comparison of share valuation with 7.7p Dividend reinvestment
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRYwu6rv7Vk2093vnE9975iJIfiNBDGYW08VmYU2MK2tsi0o9bA3rDwV9NV0XA6QJrkQeqet_jppwWg/pubchart?oid=1399088825&format=interactive
Number of shares held after each reinvestment
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRYwu6rv7Vk2093vnE9975iJIfiNBDGYW08VmYU2MK2tsi0o9bA3rDwV9NV0XA6QJrkQeqet_jppwWg/pubchart?oid=933652602&format=interactive
Annual Dividend Growth with each reinvestment
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRYwu6rv7Vk2093vnE9975iJIfiNBDGYW08VmYU2MK2tsi0o9bA3rDwV9NV0XA6QJrkQeqet_jppwWg/pubchart?oid=305726335&format=interactive
Southport isn't a rural area, I wouldn't describe it as a resort either. You need a camel to reach the sea from the beach, the pier is currently closed for structural repairs and Pleasureland is closed out of season throughout the winter period.
On Friday a total of 688,428,852 trades were recorded, with more than twice the volume of trades On Exchange vs Off Book; This is slightly different than previous spikes of this sort of magnitude, where the majority of trades were Off Book. I have no idea if this has any significance, it's just an observation.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQ49B8X4hFFdtXb6WUx45CDRcgMt5FBglgZCFc5UnApKRpOX8cznaVjvfKeIWdC6xr70q5wCbdhpFe7/pubchart?oid=570999884&format=interactive
"Bitcoin Whales Withdraw Massive BTC Reserve From Exchanges
Ali Martinez, a crypto analyst, recently took to X and revealed significant Bitcoin whale activity. He noted that a staggering 21,401 BTC has been pulled out of crypto exchanges during this week to cash out the BTC price rally profits."
"Coinglass data reveals that $145.34 million Bitcoin liquidations were recorded in the past 24 hours. Out of this, $125.81 million liquidations were long positions, which could have influenced the recent Bitcoin price crash. Whilst, short traders didn’t initiate significant liquidations and profited from the bearish trend."
https://coingape.com/bitcoin-news-whales-pull-out-over-21400-btc-from-exchanges-in-a-week/
"Let’s be honest , it’s either going to drag on into a minuscule fine or be quashed."
I agree that it's pointless to discuss the Class Action, since all any of us can do is guess the final outcome. In my opinion BT haven't done anything wrong, but it'll come down to the panel's opinion/judgement. Patourel's lawyer's are asking for around £1.3 Billion, which is nearly 2 years worth of dividend payout's, I wouldn't describe that as a miniscule fine if the panel side's with them on every point.
"Could any of the keep BT British crowd explain please."
I would suggest the opinion of any poster on here is irrelevant in respect of this subject, It's Government policies that decide who can and can't purchase BT. Thee biggest reason would be on National Security grounds, since Telecoms is quite rightly considered to be critical infrastructure. Expat, you should write to your MP if you have any issue with Government policy.
Huawei is a good example of the Governments approach to Telecommunications, and the reason they wouldn't allow a foreign takeover of the UK's largest Telecommunications Provider.
"And always behind the curtain, the fear that a competitor will try and steal a march with 6G, and force you to borrow billions to install all the upgraded infrastructure to compete with their 6G, or 7, or even 8."
That statement suggests you don't know what 6G is about. 6G is more an evolution of 5G and not a complete refresh, many 6G applications will use 5G frequencies and infrastructure with newer higher frequency/bandwidth infrastructure limited to the high st, shopping centre's, stadiums, railway stations, etc and more akin to WiFi. The days of complete network refreshes and big capex cycles are coming to an end with FTTP and 5G, because the technology is reaching the limits of what's possible within our current understanding of Physics. There'll be slow evolutions to better tech and network equipment's, maybe some changes in standards with things like 6G, but huge Telecoms capex cycles will soon be a thing of the past.
Can anyone play this game?
Ok Vodafone's issued share capital consists of 28,818,683,808 ordinary shares of which 1,739,701,451 ordinary shares are held in Treasury. The current share price is around 70p, which is around 82 Eurocent and lets say Vodafone uses all €4 Billion to buy stock and the price stays around 82 Eurocent for the entirety of the buybacks.
€4 Billion-0.5% =€3.98 Billion (stamp duty)
€3.98 Billion/0.82= 4,853,658,536 shares purchased
Lets say they decide to cancel the shares in treasury as well as the newly purchased stock, you get:
28,818,683,808-(4,853,658,536+1,739,701,451)=22,225,323,820 issued shares
The number of issued shares doesn't determine the price the market decides that, but the cancellation of 22.88% of the shares means you've increased your EPS by just short of 30% if the income remains constant.
If you were to transpose the increase in EPS onto the share price, 70p+30%= 91p. Of course it doesn't work like that in real life, just playing the game.
poker it was just a back of a *** packet calculation, based on the dividend rebasing to 4.5 eurocent and buying back €4 billion worth of shares at around 70p (82 eurocent); it also assumes that vodafone wont increase the dividend. of course there are variables that i ignored, like the share price increasing and reducing the number of shares purchased.
€4 billion/0.82= 4.878 billion shares purchased/cancelled
4.88 billion x 0.045 eurocent = €219.512 million
Buybacks should increase Earnings Per Share and reduce the overall dividend bill; If the share price stayed around current levels over the buyback periods, which I doubt, then Vodafone could probably buy back around 4.9 Billion shares, saving a further €220 Million per year in dividend pay outs upon completion.
Going off the data €5.504555 Billion is already past Next Call/Maturity date, but still showing on the Vodafone Bond debt page. I suspect the debt up to the 30th Jan has already gone but wont disappear off the page until Final Results in May.
"Debt levels are very manageable at relatively low rates, and the option to reduce the debt levels as they have been doing already is there to do if a benefit."
They've got a fair amount of Bond debt maturing, or Hybrid Bonds with Next Call dates, due over the next couple of years.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRA1ndHTf_Bz7O_moDxmcbWnEtcusZucUu6lEJvm3O4mGooeH4ErFjRqot3RQHBaVXCgoUED1k2CUVK/pubchart?oid=17624073&format=interactive
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRA1ndHTf_Bz7O_moDxmcbWnEtcusZucUu6lEJvm3O4mGooeH4ErFjRqot3RQHBaVXCgoUED1k2CUVK/pubchart?oid=1681133451&format=interactive
If they pay down the debt as it matures, without refinancing, they could reduce their Bond debt significantly over the next two years.
"Also sounds like FG next news is methods to to see live that method B is working faster, now he looked very confident there imho, looked like he was holding back excitement."
🤣🤣🤣 Seriously, holding back excitement? He looks as though he's just been to a funeral.