Member Info for fleccy

Pas, if I could recommend my own posts I think I'd go for a lot more than 3.

I've often thought about LGEN, but i'll probably carry on with my strategy of averaging down my current holdings. Out of the three stocks I'd probably go for LGEN, but going off my previous investment history you might be better off picking one of the other two lol.

The headlines around a US Spot ETF are crazy and Larry Fink describing BTC as Digital Gold lol, I don't know how he keeps a straight face. A Fink is defined as "a contemptible or thoroughly unattractive person", the Universe works in mysterious ways.

I can understand the current hype centered around a US Spot ETF being approved, and a couple of weeks ago I would have said there's no chance, but now I'm not so sure. This is reminiscent of the week before Brexit, where I'd had exchanges on here with me arguing that everyone, I'd spoken to, were voting to leave and I believed Vote Leave would win; Then a day before the Brexit vote, I said that even though all the face to face conversations I'd had suggested Brexit would happen, after watching all the media reports I had to concede that Remain would most likely succeed, of course Vote leave won much to the surprise of everyone. Will Gensler change his view on Crypto/BTC and give in to the big money players? Maybe.

The problem I have with Bitcoin, is that it's just an idea and nothing more; It has no intrinsic value and the price is entirely driven by sentiment, with no tangible assets backing the tokens; Personally I see it as nothing more than Snake Oil and the only reason I can think of, for legitimising something that's basically worthless, is to bail out the Whales/Big money who've bet their shirts on BTC, possibly leading to losses for institutions who've lent them money in the event BTC goes to zero. When the big guys take a hit it hurts their institutional backers, and when the small guys take a hit it's usually profitable for the institutions.

I'm still firmly of the view that BTC will eventually fail; In the event of a Spot ETF being approved it'll probably give it an injection of lifeforce, but in my opinion it'll eventually end in tears.

If this comes to pass, I hope Jansen's replacement continues with the same strategy. Jansen isn't to blame for the low share price, it's the market gaming Telecom stocks in my opinion.

As far as Jansen's concerned, I think he has the correct strategy and is executing it well, I would view it as a negative if Jansen were to leave BT.

Abject I initially invested in BT at around £3 and have been averaging down ever since, because I'm still of the opinion it's a sound investment; Only you can decide if BT's the correct fit for your investment goals; I'm a long term investor and can hold in perpetuity, collecting and reinvesting dividends along the way, others have different timescales and goals.

I haven't been politically motivated for much of my adult life, but I've voted Conservative ever since Brown kyboshed DB pension schemes; I've since bought into the mantra that Conservatives were more business orientated and I viewed Labour as more of a Public Sector job creator; For the first time in years I find myself questioning Conservative ideology and where their priorities lie. Although I can never forgive Labour for hammering the final nails into the DB coffin, I'm starting to view the Conservatives as a puppet of foreign big business interests. Conservative policies don't appear to give any preference to UK home grown businesses, and under the Conservatives watch the UK has become a nursery for startups with the best quickly poached by foreign entities. There aren't many large UK based giants left, but the Conservatives seem happy to erode their businesses through regulation, and give a leg up to Foreign money at the expense of UK Publicly traded companies.

In some respects Labour might not be bad for BT, as socialist leaning parties tend to be more nationalistic in supporting home based companies, and industry, and although Labour might be viewed as bad from a Foreign investment point of view, they might not be so bad for companies like BT. I probably wont vote at the next General Election, as I think they're all useless.

If it was down to me, Id' drop the dividend and announce a buyback program starting immediately. The share price is around 25 year lows, going off Google charts, and a drop in the share price on the back of a dividend cut would mean they could mop up significant stock. They could reinstate the dividends after a couple of years with significantly less shares in issue.

"BT is our top pick into Q1 results due to stronger than market expected growth and high probability of structural shifts in the market as weaker business models get challenged by higher funding costs,"

https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1020084/bt-group-top-pick-for-one-us-investment-bank-ahead-of-results-1020084.html

" I simply fail to understand why you spend so much of your time on this board, unless, of course, you are being paid by BT. "

I am being paid by BT Mandy, at least £6,724.33 this year based on a 7.7p dividend. I believe in BT's strategy, so why wouldn't I support my reasoning for investing here? You just throw insults in the misguided belief that you're in someway funny, which you're not.

I watched an analyst interview on CNBC earlier today and the cheapness of UK stocks came up in the conversation, I can't remember the words he used but he suggested that there aren't currently compelling reasons to purchase UK stocks, over international stocks, and he brushed off the point that much of the FTSE's earnings are in international stocks, but he did imply there night be opportunities to pick up UK stocks cheaper later in the year.

Unlike the professionals, who have to make a profit year in year out, I can hold in perpetuity and reinvest my dividends while my stocks are cheap, and I have the choice to use the increased dividends as income as and when the price rises out of the bargain basement bucket.

As I've pointed out before, dividend reinvestment grows your portfolio leading to increased future dividends, leading to more portfolio growth, so it has a compounding effect; The cheaper the stocks, the more stock dividend reinvestment will buy. The market and by extension media doesn't like dividend paying stocks, so in my opinion work hard to dissuade dividend investors from pursuing a reinvestment strategy in popular dividend paying stocks. The market makes its money from volatility and relies on high volumes to maintain profits, but dividend investors tend to hold while taking profits out of the market, or only reinvest in a limited way. The casino makes most of its money when the punters are continuously playing their chips, money flows out of the Casino when the players cash out their profits, or hold onto their chips.

Mandy, a visit to the Psychiatrist might be in order, if you haven't already been diagnosed. When you talk to animals do they reply? The only reason I ask is your posts suggest you're suffering from some form of mental illness.

I originally tried to view the article via a google link and was asked to subscribe whether on chrome or edge, and i also tried incognito/in private windows in both browsers. I thought it might have been something to do with my firewall software which uses an ad and cookie blocker. I have just turned on VPN access and finally managed to view the article, I assume my IP address has exceeded a threshold on their site and accessing via VPN got me through.

Seems a well balanced article and I'm in agreement with the main points, but I don't see the competition threat as being as bad as the media narrative implies. I also don't see a risk of the dividend being cut, as the last annual report was clear that the progressive dividend policy would be maintained and, at the very least, ensuring the dividend will be maintained:

"Dividend

We have declared a final dividend for FY23 of 5.39 pence per share (FY22: 5.39 pence per share), bringing the full-year total to 7.70 pence per share (FY22: 7.70 pence per share).

We reconfirm our progressive dividend policy which is to maintain or grow the dividend each year whilst taking into consideration a number of factors including underlying medium-term earnings expectations and levels of business reinvestment.

The Board expects to continue with this policy for future years, and to declare two dividends per year, with the interim dividend being fixed at 30% of the prior year’s full year dividend."

My overall impression of the article is that it was agnostic, but when added to the overall negative media and market narrative, it may put some off, not me though.

https://www.bt.com/bt-plc/assets/documents/investors/financial-reporting-and-news/annual-reports/2023/2023-bt-group-plc-annual-report.pdf

I trust BT's word, over market and media speculation probably aimed at discouraging investment in what is already a cheap stock.

"So interest rate lolops on to 7%, the market demands a 5% risk excess for holding VOD"

That would have to have been written into the Bonds when they were issued, and since Bonds are issued in different currencies, at a fixed rate, which country would the interest rates have to go to 7% in. Posts such as yours just play on peoples fears and are just plain wrong. I'll agree with you if you can show me any Vodafone Bonds where a condition like that is written in. If there are any conditions written into the bonds, they'll more likely be contingent on rating downgrades by the ratings agencies, not interest rates.

Can't read the article and I wont be subscribing, but they must be forecasting based on the amount of assumed capex, but it would make sense for BT to throw as much capital at FTTP and 5G while the Tax environment is favourable.

"The UK Government announced a three-year 100% tax expensing benefit on qualifying UK capex, effective from 1 April 2023; this will allow Openreach to deliver increased connections and offset inflation whilst reconfirming our 25m FTTP target by the end of 2026"

No doubt BT's accountants will have already weighed up the capex/tax savings against borrowing for pension top ups. They have the choice to reduce capex if they wish too and cover the dividend from free cash flow, or they could plough more into capex, take the tax benefit and borrow to cover shortfalls. Unlike the narrative in much of the media and the opinion of analysts like Polo Tang, I don't see the problem with BT taking on some extra debt especially factoring in the projected cost savings in the coming years.

"The programme was first announced in May 2020 and runs until the end of FY25. In response to cost inflation, during the year we revised the gross annualised savings target to £3.0bn (previously £2.5bn), with a cost to achieve of £1.6bn (previously £1.3bn). Since embarking on the programme we have achieved gross annualised savings of £2.1bn and incurred costs of £1.1bn."

https://www.bt.com/bt-plc/assets/documents/investors/financial-reporting-and-news/quarterly-results/fy23/q4/q4-fy23-release.pdf

"HSBC is the first bank to join BT and Toshiba’s pioneering commercial quantum secure metro network, working in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Using Quantum Key Distribution, HSBC is connecting their global HQ in Canary Wharf and a datacentre in Berkshire to explore how this technology can defend against future cyber threats and quantum attacks."

https://www.hsbc.com/news-and-media/media-releases/2023/hsbc-becomes-first-bank-to-join-the-uks-pioneering-commercial-quantum-secure-metro-network

"Check out Starknet. Aim to quantum mine over the next few days."

Are you confusing Quantum leap with Quantum mining?

Starknet relates to Ethereum, based on proof of stake; QBT is focused on Proof of Work Crypto like BTC.

"On 03 February 2022, SpaceX launched 49 Starlink satellites, 38 of which re-entered the atmosphere on or about 07 February 2022 due to unexpectedly high atmospheric drag."

https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023SpWea..2103330B/abstract

https://www.livescience.com/space/the-sun/solar-maximum-could-hit-us-harder-and-sooner-than-we-thought-how-dangerous-will-the-suns-chaotic-peak-be

"Solar maximum could hit us harder and sooner than we thought. How dangerous will the sun's chaotic peak be?"

I don't know Steve, 6% yield at the current price and a safe stock hovering around a rock bottom price, I'd say it's a good investment for those the believe the company statements like these in their annual reports:

"The combined financial benefit from our

transformation programmes will result

in gross annualised cost savings of £3bn

by the end of FY25. We are well on track

to achieving this and by the end of FY23

we had made gross annualised savings

of £2.1bn."

"This year we’ve continued to

transform, delivering £0.7bn of cost

saving efficiencies this year. To

date, we have delivered 71% of our

£3bn cost savings target by March

2025, at a cost of £1.1bn. We further

simplified our products, processes,

digital and network technologies

and continued to build our new

strategic IT landscape. We made

progress, but there is more we

need to do."

I'd say BT are making the right noises, it isn't there fault if the market isn't listening. I'm listening and topping up as funds become available, awaiting the time when Capex drops off a cliff and the pension deficit sees light at the end of the tunnel. 2026 will likely be a defining year, but the early 2030's will also be important in relation to Exchange leases disappearing off the books and the BTPS. It's entirely possible that the Exchange closures and pension scheme may start bearing fruit much sooner than 2030, but BT aren't currently saying that.

Thankyou Pictland, fully agree with your crypto points. As far as my stocks are concerned, they're already severely in bear market territory, so I'm not sure there's much room for them to fall any further lol. I believe certain US stocks are ripe for a correction, but they're continually talked up by the vested interest commentators on the Financial Media channels.