Member Info for fleccy

"Try going into your branch and take out cash of any significant amount, you won't get it. It is part of the soft pursuation to make you go digital."

Did you mean soft persuasion?

Even using the correct word what you're saying makes no sense, why would anyone go into a branch and withdraw a large quantity of cash? You just wouldn't for any valid reason. I can't remember the last time I used cash for anything, I either pay using my debit card, or using the online fast transfer facility. For anyone needing small quantities of cash, there's cash back available while you do your shopping. The reason Bank branches are closing is because most people don't use them, anymore and more often than not it's scam merchants who want paying in cash due to traceability constraints.

"BT Group’s startup incubation hub, Etc., has already made significant steps in unlocking the potential of drones. Earlier this year, Etc. announced a landmark partnership with UTM specialist Altitude Angel, a partnership that will help enable Etc. to become a one-stop shop for UK drone enablement capabilities."

https://newsroom.bt.com/action-needed-within-next-year-for-uk-to-catch-up-in-drone-economy-race-new-report-shows/

"BT Group accelerates cloud transformation, passing key industry assessment"

https://newsroom.bt.com/bt-group-accelerates-cloud-transformation-passing-key-industry-assessment/

P ussy cat

"yes absolutely right buglet. our very own joe rogan is as ugly as his namesake and appears just as ferocious - nasty bit of work if you ask me."

i'm a *****cat lol.

My personal opinion is that the big market players have too many tools to manipulate stocks and sector prices. Off Exchange trading allows big vested interest's to direct big trades Off Exchange, drive liquidity down On Exchange, and use small algorithmic trades to move prices more easily; Throw in derivatives and other instruments and the market is skewed in favour of big money. I've heard the arguments for allowing dark pool and OTC trades, but it's just vested interests talking their own books in my opinion. Personally I believe all trades should be forced On Exchange, so all trades contribute to price discovery and that way the stock prices will be a true reflection of all trades.

IPO's cancelled soon after they're announced, Arm holdings listing in the US, UK startups mopped up by foreign companies, UK stocks at valuations way below other countries and Foreign entities buying large stakes in UK listed stocks, etc, etc, etc.

The latest is:

"Soda ash firm WE Soda has ditched its plans to float on the London Stock Exchange today citing “extreme investor caution”, just one week after first announcing the move."

https://www.cityam.com/we-soda-scraps-london-listing-plans-in-bruising-blow-to-the-city/

Doesn't feel very covert to me, it feels more like a frontal assault.

It's only Vodafone UK and Three UK that are merging. In the event the merger goes through, there'll be no share split of any of the companies involved. Vodafone will own 51% of the new company and Three will own 49%. Vodafone will transfer around £4.3 Billion of debt to the new company and Three £1.7 Billion in debt.

Link:

https://www.investis-live.com/vodafone/64788215e262e70c000f07f1/gdgh

"Time is finite - and given your advanced age time is running out."

How old do you think I am lol.

Just for you Toff, this is me, do I look like someone who's on death's door?

https://i.postimg.cc/Jhm9Ym1T/To-prove-a-point.jpg

"No one on these boards has got trashed on their investments as much as you. And anyone who followed your advice would have been decimated too. There’s never a day go by without you posting upbeat forecasts and utopian futures for the telecom sector."

I don't feel like my investments have been trashed, since before Covid I've topped up and increased my dividends from £13,000 to £23,000 per year, and the more dividends I reinvest the more dividends I'll get back going forward. I have a choice, I can either reinvest, or take income, I've been reinvesting because I see a bright future for Telecom stocks and I see the low prices of my target stocks as a gift. A paper loss isn't a capital loss, so nothing's been trashed.

"is the market waiting to move or do they think all things considered there is not going to be a significant value shift."

I find it strange that the market can throw money at investments with a high risk of failure and little chance of high reward, yet they can't see the underlying potential locked up in the Telecom sector. The market uses the excuse of repetitive capex cycles due to network refreshes and historically there's some truth in that, but the Telecoms companies have always made money regardless of the investments. I'm going to use an often used cliché that on many occasions isn't necessarily correct; "This time it's different".

Over the last 40 years, transmission has evolved from FDM, to PDH, to SDH and now we're in the era of DWDM; Voice has seen the transition from mechanical to digital with many equipment refreshes to digital exchanges with the introduction of protocols like C7 (SS7) between exchanges and Dass/Q931 for business customer facing connections.

Why is it different this time? There's nowhere to go from here, Fibre can cover all customer bandwidth requirements for generations to come; We're also reaching bandwidth limits allowable at the RF level for 5G/6G, all they can do is build more cells to provide more bandwidth capacity over smaller area footprints. The way I see it, the access network, voice/data/cloud convergence changes taking place now, will be the last network evolution for decades to come, or even longer.

These current network upgrades will likely be the last in our, or our children's, lifetimes.

"It’s my belief that both Voda and BT will both need huge capital raises further down the road, to remain in existence."

We're all entitled to our opinion, no matter how ridiculous it may be. Personally I view my analysis as reasoned and well thought out.

Mandy and Toff, If you can't see future drops in capex once FTTP and 5G completed, cost savings from exchange closures, less staff, lower power requirements, more converged network and all the benefits from owning a full suite of Telecom provisioning services, then you don't know how to measure a company's future prospects.

BT's strategy has been made really clear over the last 3 years at least, all I've done is point out where cost savings will come from. Cost savings are already filtering through and Capex will fall off a cliff by 2026, add in all the other cost savings and the Free Cash Flow tap should open up fully.

Time will tell if I'm correct, I can't help it if you two are too thick to understand it.

Now around 2, clearly Vodafone is undervalued.

I would think there's a limit to how far the market can push the price down from here. The share price isn't important to Vodafone's finances, as they clearly don't need to sell stock to raise capital, so the price will have to turn at some point. The Telecom sector has been underperforming for a number of years and Vodafone has been particularly affected by the negative narrative directed at the sector. From a retail perspective I have a large holding in Vodafone and no intention of selling, so I wont be falling victim to the market's games. In my opinion, Telecom stocks will eventually climb out of the hole the market's thrown them into.

"Those that buy Lloyds shares are hopeful & expectant. Will 2008/9 happen again or something similar ? . Mortgage & debt defaults will become an issue in my opinion"

I don't see that myself, most people are still working and apparently there's a shortage of people to fill vacancies, so unemployment wont push people to default on their mortgages.

There are ways the banks could aid mortgage holders, struggling with payments, like extending their mortgage term meaning they'll pay more overall but less now. Commercial and unsecured loans are the riskiest, but they alone wont be an existential threat for the banks.

"Aggregate DB funding level rises by more than £50bn"

https://www.pensionsage.com/pa/Aggregate-DB-funding-level-improves-further.php

“For DB schemes, managing this turbulence and capitalising on the increases in scheme surpluses through an insurance transaction will be front of mind. However, fear of a recession could see gilt yields fall back and un-do some of the funding improvements of the past 18 months. Speed, therefore, is all important.

“Solid administrative process and best-in-class data standards will be all-important to attracting insurer attention in a congested market. Ongoing monitoring and specialist services will also support rapid transactions in such a competitive market.

“The DB market remains the subject of much debate with market noise around the use of scheme assets and consolidators, including the potential use of the PPF as a consolidator. However, trustees should not be distracted from the basic principle that those schemes that are well governed, have good data and sound investment strategy will have the best options available to them.”

https://www.actuarialpost.co.uk/article/comments-on-the-ppf-7800-index-figures-for-june-2023-22136.htm

"I get what you were trying to explain but I did think it was misleading."

Not really, who's to say the trade wouldn't go through at the share price anyway, or even at the Ask price?

" in 5-10 years this. company will be a completely different one. "

Completely agree Ian, I've been saying as much myself for the last couple of years.

I've been topping up Lloyds and BT recently, but only because I see more risk of the dividend being dropped at Vodafone and I want to maintain as much income as I can in that event.