Member Info for fleccy

Lloyds is by far our largest holding with the highest dividends. I have high hopes for Lloyds, from dividend and capital appreciation. We're only 1p from breakeven on our Lloyds holdings and then it's £4,478 for every 1p increase above 49p.

The only way it turns to crud is if the company goes bust, or the share price never recovers. The way I deal with the falling share price is by investing more capital and reinvesting dividends, so I bring down the average and pull in more yield. Before BT, VOD and Lloyds halved their dividends we were pulling in around £13,000 annual dividend income, due to the falling share prices since then, and further investment, next years forecast dividends is now over £27,000 and the average costs per share are significantly lower.

Abject either through skill or luck you've timed your entry into the stocks much better than me, so as you say you've locked in a better yield, and will likely realise a much better percentage capital gain should the share prices recover and you decide to sell. The market's about winners and losers, but you only really win or lose when you exit your investment and convert an unrealised paper gain or loss into capital.

I'm not sure why Inflation keeps being mentioned, since whether or not someone outperforms inflation is purely down to the dividend yield from their investments. If I was achieving a dividend yield of say 2% then I'd agree with you that I'm losing out to inflation, but I'm actually achieving a yield of 5.3% so I've only underperformed inflation between Jan 2022 and October this year, compared to the previous 10 years where the average inflation was well under 3%. The BOE are mandated to maintain inflation around 2%, so the dividend yield from my investments currently beat that by 2.65 times, so averaged over time I'm all but guaranteed to beat inflation as long as dividends are maintained.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/l55o/mm23

Aus you said "a SP drop of 20% ( say £40,000) is not offset by a 7% div, which will fluctuate, depending what price shares were bought at (could be 7%, could be 3%) depends on average price & then that divi is subject to inflation etc etc etc."

The price you purchase stock at locks in the yield for that investment, as long as the dividends are maintained at the same level. If you bought 10,000 shares of stock with a dividend yield of 10% and the stock halved in value, you're still yielding 10% on the original capital invested; If you subsequently reinvest the dividends back into the stock, after the price has halved, the top up shares will have a 20% dividend yield and the overall yield will be derived from the total capital invested set against the amount received in dividends. The variations in share price doesn't change the yield on your investment, that will only change when you either purchase new stock, or sell stock. If the price of the stock drops and you reinvest dividends to purchase more stock, you will increase the yield as long as the dividends are maintained. The day to day and month to month variations in a stocks price is irrelevant, from a capital point of view all that counts is the price you buy at and the price you sell at, anything else is just realised or missed opportunities.

Thevid I'm yet to see any scenario where Bitcoin could replace Fiat, can you explain how that will come about?

"My issue is the unending repetition, the 101 explanations and bad maths used to justify them."

Aus we all talk our own book, can you tell me where I've used bad maths? I'll happily check/correct any mistakes I might have made.

Aus TDM has been dying a slow death over the last 15 years. Once the PSTN switch off happens, the last Common Channel Signalling links will be consigned to history and VOIP will completely replace all voice transmission techniques, as there'll be no other option. The network will soon consist purely of Core routers and servers interconnected by Ethernet over DWDM, most of the Cloud network's are already in place. Back as far as 2008 many of the businesses processed calls internally using VOIP, with gateways into PSTN using Q931. At the end of 2025 everything will go VOIP, so any businesses still relying on CCS PSTN links will be cut off; The one's with any sense will already be moving, or already moved to VOIP. Once the legacy core network is switched off at the end of 2025, the Cloud network replacing it will remain in place for generations with occasional upgrades to deal with ever increasing Bandwidth demand.

Ok it's a shared Google sheets chart and I get no notifications as to who, or how many people view the chart; Google may note information related to viewers of the chart, but they're far more likely to harvest relevant information from our daily Google searches, so as much as I agree with being careful about clicking on unknown links, there are no worries in this case.

As far as having no class, you're probably right. I would describe myself as working class chav, who's honest about their position and doesn't care what others think. Basically what you see is what you get.

Overall we're currently sitting on paper losses of around £121,000, two months ago the paper losses were over £165,000. Because of the quantities of shares, the Paper Loss/Gain can move fast in either direction, for example in the case of our Lloyds shares a penny move either way is worth £4,478.

Here's a chart showing historic movements in our Gain/Loss, based on the current holdings, so some of the historic gains are amplified by more recent top-ups.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSRX4H1u9p4G_3QG0njX4ROMIZwMxw92Qf7w9EPp_Uxsoi5ctJQrxwD3thCdEogn_QFQwa9yhWIfw_S/pubchart?oid=1051548844&format=interactive

£121,000 paper loss might seem like a lot, but when you consider the stocks are at historically low valuations, with very low P/E's, things can turn around very quickly. Because the dividends are now on target for over £27,000 annually, if dividends are maintained and the share prices stayed around current levels the paper loss would be more than wiped out in under 5 years. I'm expecting the share prices will rise from here though, since the Government are starting to view UK stock valuations as an issue and UK stocks are well overdue an upward rerating.

The thing to bear in mind Mandy is that a lot of the initial investments were made when the stock prices were a lot higher; The initial investment in BT was around £3 and the average is now £1.89, Lloyds initial investment was around 60p, now 49p and Vod's initial average was around £1.50, now £1.27. As I've said on many occasions, I don't view paper losses as real until I sell and it becomes a capital loss, so while I perceive our chosen stocks to be cheap I'll just keep topping up. In contrast to the market professionals who trade for a living and have to win every year, I only have to win once.

$10.1 Million will buy a massive 225 Bitcoin at current prices. No doubt many gullible people will throw money at Blackrock's ETF and Blackrock will likely pull their initial $10 Million capital over time as they profit from the fund. As I've always said, Bitcoin is useless, it's a manufactured product with a value based purely on sentiment/belief. When I watch people like Mike Novogratz on CNBC, describing Bitcoin as Digital Gold, I don't know how they can keep a straight face. Gold gets its value from its properties as an Element on the Periodic Table. When vested interest Bitcoin commentators compare Bitcoin to Gold, they seem to forget about all the varied uses for Gold, other than just being a hedge and "store of value"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold#:~:text=In%20pure%20form%2C%20it%20is,one%20of%20the%20noble%20metals.

In the Wiki article it mentions that scientists have been able make Gold thorough Nuclear Transmutation, but it's impractical as it cost far more to create Gold than to mine it. Bitcoin alternatives, that work in the same fashion or better than Bitcoin, can easily be coded on a keyboard or possibly using AI. The one remaining use for Bitcoin is to buy and sell it, with profit dependent on the greater fool theory; I believe the vested interests have one goal, to make a profit by convincing as many fools as they can to buy into the hype. If Bitcoin does eventually achieve mainstream adoption, it wont be because it's useful, it'll be because the Gods of Finance have deemed it so.

We all have different priorities and goals, when I was in my 30's it was more about buying a nice house in a nice area and I always viewed 60 as the right age for retirement. As far as investments are concerned it was always about income, since you can't live on cash locked up in a paper gain until you sell and you can use dividends to either live or grow your portfolio.

The current tally for our Lloyds shares is 447,804 and for Vodafone we're up to 109,734 after the last recent purchase.

Larry BT's a cheap share with a good yield and good prospects, it's as good a stock as any to invest in at these low prices. Personally I think BT has really good prospects and they're executing the correct strategy in my opinion, I'll weigh up the Pro's and Con's of where to reinvest the next set of divi's next February.

Abject I have Children, Grandchildren and unlike me, my wife doesn't have a private pension, so in the event anything happened to me she would receive a much reduced pension from my pension providers, so from my perspective it isn't all about me; That said, I eat well, I walk and workout loads and I'm in good shape, fingers crossed I'll be around for few more decades at least.

Actually Pete a falling share can be a good thing when you're reinvesting dividends, as long as the dividends are sustained over time and the price eventually recovers at some point in the future.

Remember the Fleccy1/Fleccy2 chart. In Fleccy1's universe the price stays the same, whereas Fleccy2 see's his stock halving in price immediately following purchase. The price and dividends remains constant in both Universes and bot Fleccy's reinvest all their dividends.

Here's the chart showing the comparison of valuation over time:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRYwu6rv7Vk2093vnE9975iJIfiNBDGYW08VmYU2MK2tsi0o9bA3rDwV9NV0XA6QJrkQeqet_jppwWg/pubchart?oid=1399088825&format=interactive

Comparison of increases in dividend income as dividends are reinvested over the years:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRYwu6rv7Vk2093vnE9975iJIfiNBDGYW08VmYU2MK2tsi0o9bA3rDwV9NV0XA6QJrkQeqet_jppwWg/pubchart?oid=305726335&format=interactive

Abject it's one thing having financial goals, it's another thing realising them. If you retire at 45 you'll require a large sustainable income. The reason I can sit on paper losses and reinvest dividends is due to having an alternative income from two final salary pension schemes, so me and my wife can easily manage irrespective of dividends or capital gains from our investments. When we hit 67, which is currently a good few years away, we'll also have state pensions adding to our overall household income. I retired at 58 due to redundancy and started receiving my DB pensions at 60. If you're just relying on dividend income for retiring at 45, it would leave you totally dependent on income from investments to fund the rest of your life, which is risky if you have no alternative income stream. Not only that, retirement isn't all it's cracked up to be, it can be boring if you enjoy the daily grind of work.

Mandy brings up dividend reinvestment more than I do. I think I've previously more than covered my reasoning for using dividend reinvestment as an investment strategy. There's loads of online content explaining the compounding effect of dividend reinvestment, anyone who's interested should Google it.

Rob, today isn't the last trading day of the year. 27th, 28th are full trading days and Friday 29th has half a day trading.

I think the problems with initiatives, like 21CN, is that the tech was developing at such a rapid pace. You had the moves to SDH and IP, with the companies like CISCO rapidly innovating on the IP side, and the Telecom equipment manufacturers developing DWDM hierarchies as the next evolutionary step. The PSTN switch off will likely be the final nail in the legacy Core Network coffin; Core Networks will become fully IP, with Switch Routers and servers interconnected optically by DWDM and Ethernet, converging everything into the Cloud with Access Networks following closely behind as FTTP connectivity moves to completion. Even mobile networks are now IP/Cloud based.

Once the current 5G and FTTP Capex outlay nears completion, I don't see any large scale Network refreshes in our life times; Equipment will likely improve and be replaced as required, dependent on evolving Bandwidth requirements, but this will be a slow burn rather than a complete Network refresh, in my opinion.

I very much doubt the Government would sue any company on the back of this, if they're making best efforts to meet the deadlines. It was a political decision that created this situation and lots of resource is required to replace large amounts of network; BT have to procure and finance replacement equipment, organise staff, arrange outages with many different customers who may have their own reasons for refusing permission to take down service, etc. I just can't imagine OFCOM would sue BT if they didn't fully meet the deadline, otherwise BT would likely have a good case to fight it in court.

If the reported average cost per share for Drahi's investment is 175p, then the company he's set up to hold the stock is bringing in a 4.4% yield; If the interest payments on the debt used to purchase the shares is lower than 4.4%, and they're allowed to offset income tax from dividends against Debt interest repayments, then Drahi is making a profit on his BT holdings. I have no idea if debt interest repayments can be offset against dividend income, but if it is and the debt interest payments are lower than 4.4%, then Drahi can hold for as long as he needs to dependent on whatever maturity dates may apply to the debt. I'm only guessing about this, no doubt any accountants on here will set me straight.

The Dividend yield for BT is currently around 6%, so any dividend reinvestment at current prices locks in that 6% yield for the reinvestment. The Central Banks are committed to keeping inflation around 2%, so reinvesting dividends while stock prices are depressed is a no brainer if you can afford it; Also Equities are a hedge against inflation, just like Gold, but Equities pay dividends that can be spent or reinvested.

Telecom providers are probably among the least impacted by high Inflation. Telecom company bonds are fixed rate, so the debt is unaffected by short term interest rates, but the companies can pass inflationary rises onto consumers. Where interest rates do have an impact, is when debt refinancing is due. As per other recent threads, Vodafone has around 13 Billion Euros of debt maturing over the next 5 years, but would likely be able to pay that in cash if there was no other options available.