Member Info for fleccy

"What exactly is wrong with any of the above , other than it doesn’t fit in with traditional ways ?"

I don't disagree with anything you've said about AI and the changes it will bring. I have an issue with the hype around unbacked crypto and DeFi in general, I see it as an inferior insecure alternative to current managed systems and don't see a future for it; Basically Crypto trading is like a casino, where you can play the different tables and cash in your chips when you leave, but those casino chips add nothing outside of the casino.

"inflation alone has effectively reduced the value of his portfolio by 40% over the last 10 years)."

Mandy, I'm sitting on paper losses, so I'm obviously underperforming when measured against inflation, the only way I'd lock in that underperformance would be to sell at a loss, so what's your point? I'll just hold and add until I outperform, it's a no brainer Mandy. Of course investments added recently during covid aren't underperforming, like the BT top up at 106p. Like I said, we're patient investors.

"but its the perefct place to back test & learn charting and the tech side of markets ... that can be applied in forex, stocks , you name it ... so Fleccy, there's one benefit to it !"

I can't disagree with you on that PAS, it is a school for prospective traders and I'm sure many of them will find real jobs one day 😉

"If an application can read your MAC address, it can be requested by the other end application. & be transported across a network, not for routing but part of the IP packet payload."

Why would an app need to access one of your MAC addresses, if the offending app's already installed on your device? If an app wanted to track you it'd likely covertly access GPS if on a phone, or check your location using something like tracert to find your location and communicate it back to whoever. Devices usually have more than one MAC address, which goes no further than the local network you're connected anyway, and you can spoof MAC addresses if you want to mask your identity on a local network. Yes MAC addresses are unique to an interface, but as I said you can spoof a MAC address and the only use that I can think of for checking a MAC address on a device, is to confirm that licensed software isn't being used across multiple unlicensed devices. On business networks, MAC addresses are often used to identify devices connected to ports, to safeguard security by ensuring only authorised equipment is connected, but it'd be rubbish as a tool for much else than the two reasons I've stated.

In summary, I agree that it's possible for an app to read your MAC addresses. but I don't see what use the information would be apart from network security and confirming software licenses aren't abused. Aus if you can tell me how the MAC address can be used for nefarious purposes, I'll read your reasoning with interest.

"why is my mispelling of your made up name anything to do with my credibility? "

Because Fleecy is used as an insult by many on here, along with many other deliberate misspellings of my username, you'd have said the same in my situation.

But Lloyds provides a service, whereas BTC just burns electricity with no tangible benefit. BTC is equivalent to rolling a boulder up a hill for no apparent reason, eventually tiredness will kick in and the boulder will roll back down to the bottom.

Broadband is unaffected, just mobile service ending. I also have Broadband with Plusnet and they made it clear that service will continue. Their words:

"Don’t worry, this doesn’t impact Plusnet Broadband, and we will continue to do what we do best, delivering great value broadband."

It's Fleccy, not Fleecy if you want to be taken seriously.

To answer your points:

"Bitcoin is struggling to stay above $30,000".

In spite of all the recent pumping around ETF's and other things, BTC is indeed struggling to break out above $30,000. Even Larry Fink describing it as Digital Gold did nothing for the price; It's relevant as the Halving approaches around April next year, and if the price doesn't rise from here over the next 8 months, the miners will be facing dire straits post the Halving.

I've seen many references stating that Fiat and Crypto are both unbacked with nothing behind them, but I disagree. Currencies used to be on the Gold standard, so the dollar would have been backed by an equivalent amount of Gold held in the reserves; Fiat is backed by the strength of the issuing state's economies, with the floating value's dependent on the market view of their individual strength's; Sterling is backed by the strength of the UK economy, the dollar relates to the strength of the US economy, etc, etc. Bitcoin is backed by nothing, it doesn't have a Central bank stabilising it and nothing's produced by proof of work, so it's value is based purely on belief with nothing tangible or productive backing it. The argument suggesting Fiat and Bitcoin are the same, ignores the value locked up in various economies using Fiat based currencies.

As far as my opinion on retail shunning Crypto, I have no way of proving it by quoting examples from the media. At the moment a lot of speculative bets have been laid due to the publicity over Spot ETF's and other things, I view this new money as speculative trades and not indicative of new retail enthusiasm for Crypto. The next year could be the end of BTC and many of the Altcoins, only time will tell.

Got an Email yesterday saying:

"Since the 29th March 2023, we no longer offer mobile services to new customers.

As an existing customer, your Plusnet plan will continue for now, so don’t worry about loss of service.

We will be closing all our mobile services in the coming months. This means you’ll need to switch your service to another provider in the future."

"We want to make sure you still get great value, flexible mobile plans. As Plusnet is part of the BT and EE family, we’ve joined forces with EE to create a range of SIM only deals available exclusively to Plusnet mobile customers. Bringing you the great value of Plusnet, but with the performance of EE, the UK’s best network.

5GB for £6 per month"

Changed over today, but I had to go through the whole routine of getting a PAC code and registering details with EE; Plusnet appears to be treated as a completely different company.

"5GB SIM plan £6.00

1 months | Unlimited minutes and texts

Total monthly cost £6.00

Manage your Inclusive Extras and add-ons in My EE."

Aus a VLAN is a layer 2 broadcast domain, all layer 3 devices on a VLAN need to be in the same layer 3 network, and data might exit the VLAN via a router port configured as a default gateway. Layer 3 devices use ARP tables to cross reference an IP address to the MAC address of the destination device, to ensure messages are directed to the correct device at layer 2. Your home router works in a similar way, the IP address of your PC/Phone would likely be in the range 192.168, or something similar, and the router/hub will use Network Address Translation to interface with your FTTC/FTTP port using an IP allocated by your provider. MAC Addresses are purely layer 2 and are only visible on the LAN and no further. Someone would be able to trace the IP address of my router port as far as the nearest default gateway on my provider network and no further. As far as cookies, etc, that's what my antivirus software's for.

In summary, communication at layer 2 uses MAC addresses, ARP tables on layer 3 devices cross reference MAC addresses to IP addresses, with MAC address going no further than any layer 3 port on the LAN. If your PC/Phone is connected via a network with the final router using NAT, the end user will only see the IP address of the router port facing the provider network and not your device IP.

Thought I'd point out Aus's lack of knowledge before I had my lunch, I've now eaten so I'll talk about some of the other points raised. Pete you're correct, I don't care about anonymity and I don't use a VPN server for accessing LSE, and why should I? In the scheme of things I'm a nobody. As far as how long it takes to see a paper gain on our stocks, it isn't on the forefront of my mind, otherwise I might have sold when we were in profit in Feb 2022. What will likely happen, if and when our stocks show a paper gain, is that we'll still hold and take all the dividends and either bank them, spend them, or whatever. The primary reason we're currently reinvesting and not taking the dividends, is because we don't need to and our stocks are historically cheap, and it's just as easy to reinvest in our current holdings as look for value dividend paying stocks elsewhere.

"Anonymous accounts is not anonymity & using a vlan doesn’t stop identity sharing between applications (layer 5) which by their nature overcome all encryption and all network routing (layer 2/3) precautions."

Aus you're confusing VLAN with VPN, a VLAN is a Virtual Local Area Network and a VPN is a Virtual Private Network. VPN access can use a proxy server to mask originating IP addresses, whereas VLAN's are used at layer 2 to differentiate between different layer 3 networks sharing the same link.

"Out of interest what other divi stock due you own?"

We only hold Lloyds, BT and Vodafone, all currently showing a paper loss unfortunately. We did show an overall paper gain in February 2022, but price drops on all our holdings since then have dragged us into paper loss. All our stocks are at historically low p/e's, so we view it as a no brainer to reinvest dividends at these levels, since it's unlikely these low levels will be maintained indefinitely and we're patient investors.

"How much value has the pound lost since 2010?"

So what inflation busting investments would you make Mandy? Obviously without hindsight or a functioning crystal ball.

"you will have worked out based on your average v current price, that it’s going to take some time for you to recover your total BT investments"

Pete, our BT investments was in profit last July and dropped over the last year for no real reason; I view Lloyds and BT dividends as relatively safe and have recently been directing reinvestment into those two, and although I view Vodafone as a safe stock long term, I have some doubts about future dividends, so have been shying away from reinvesting dividends there. All that said, Vodafone in the low 70's is super tempting, even considering the risk of a dividend cut or complete suspension; I've been seriously considering Vodafone again after the recent price drop of around 56% in the last year.

"This can bring $10trillion+ into the Bitcoin and you are bearish ?"

I'm bearish because any value in Crypto is illusory and based purely on belief. Now that retail are shying away from Crypto, with enthusiasm falling off a cliff, ETF's and new custody facilities are appearing aimed at reinflating the hype bubble, pulling in new money via the back door, I'm not so sure it'll work. It tells a story that all this is happening when Crypto liquidity is low, and smacks of a bailout for some of the Mega Whales who've borrowed big money, betting it all on BTC.

I'd compare Crypto to a housing estate built using mundic block, with Professor Joe Butcher sitting in the Show House and promising a nirvana lifestyle for the naïve who decide to buy.

I don't think of myself as an investment guru Mandy. I have one investment strategy and I stick to it, I invest in dividend stocks and reinvest the dividends if the price drops and stays low. Our initial investment in BT was around £3 per share, our BT average cost per share now is £1.89, and even though all three of our holdings have rebased their dividends, we're on target to pull in around £10,000 per year more in dividends than 5 years ago. We're on target for £25,000 tax free dividends in the next year, with the option to either reinvest or take income, I think we're doing ok. As far as using the dividends as income instead of reinvestment, we'd do that if we needed the cash, especially since I think our stocks are severely undervalued and I don't want to risk missing out on the extra returns should the prices recover in the short to medium term.

For your information Mandy, by far our largest holding is Lloyds which brings in nearly twice as much as the other two individually. A good percentage of our current holdings are through dividend reinvestment while prices have been low, as far as I'm concerned dividend reinvestment works for us, you can do what you want.

Pas, with all this good news why is BTC struggling to stay above $30,000?

Mandy, I don't see the point of explaining the merits of dividend reinvestment to you again, as you're obviously too stupid to understand simple concepts like compounding, or the simple fact that reinvested dividends buy more stock if the price has dropped.

Pete, dividends don't have to be reinvested back into the same stock, I divert my reinvestments where I see the most value, with the only rule being that my reinvestment reaps more dividends going forward. For anyone who believes that BT will always have a p/e of 6, then don't reinvest there, personally I think Telecom stocks will see an upward rerating at some point, in the meantime I'll buy more stock and get more dividends back while I can.

A takeover of BT would have to be hostile and the suitor would have to fight the BOD, the press and the Government, so highly unlikely in my opinion. I looked at AT&T today and it's around 30 year lows and only slightly beating BT over the last 5 years, Verizon's also down nearly 33% over the last 5 years. Clearly BT's low price isn't about BT, but the sector it sits in.

Just look at AT&T and Verizon compared to US indexes over the last 5 years:

https://www.google.com/finance/quote/T:NYSE?window=5Y&comparison=INDEXDJX%3A.DJI%2CINDEXSP%3A.INX%2CINDEXNYSEGIS%3ANYA%2CNYSE%3AVZ