Member Info for fleccy

"some risky shares with the possibility of real growth (not just AIM)."

I class any stocks in the early growth phase as risky investments.
An example to demonstrate my opinion, look at Softbank's investment into WeWork, even I could see that was a risky venture since companies like Regus were already in that space. Regus have been offering similar services for decades, so why did the market classify WeWork as a revolutionary growth stock, when it wasn't? It was probably more about creating hype and hoping it would lead to a sky high valuation. A Field of Dreams scenario, throw enough money at it, fool people into thinking it's something revolutionary and then make money through an IPO, or not.
A UK example was Sirius Minerals; Suck in a load of retail investors and then pull funding and sell the asset to a multinational company, leaving the retail shareholders nursing big losses. Sirius minerals is one of the reasons I never invest in infrastructure projects, since various infrastructure projects have gone the same way. Carillion is another example of UK infrastructure projects going down the toilet; Another example is Eurotunnel, which hammered French and UK retail investors.
The above examples are some of the big ones, but loads of growth investments are flushed away and it's fine if people are willing to lose their entire investment, but I prefer to take a safer route.

Skier banks aren't growth stocks, they're banks lol. I also invest in Telecom stocks, which are also not growth stocks, they're more akin to utilities as are Banks to be honest. Telecom companies are involved in research and issue patents, but they also issue dividends and that should be rewarded by the market. If I wanted to trade growth, I'd invest in the risky AIM stocks which are a completely different animal. I don' understand what your problem is, people have a choice to invest in "value" dividend paying stocks or AIM "growth" stocks, so why the contempt for stocks that pay dividends? Shouldn't your focus be elsewhere, since your primary interest is "growth" stocks. More recently, the market noise is foretelling a rotation from growth into value, so why would I sell my dividend stocks now? Since there's a possibility of a rotation from growth to value.
You keep mentioning the S&P, so my guess is you're a fan of US stocks; Why would I invest in US stocks when they're overvalued and the US in the process of throwing a hissy fit? There's so much wrong with the US, the Financial crisis started there and the current banking issues are in their regional banks. My personal view is the US is among the riskiest markets to invest in, as it's got the most to lose and is showing growing signs of stress. Another observation about the US is the Meme stocks phenomena, which makes no sense in a rational investing environment, which leads me to conclude that investment into US stocks is irrational.

Under normal circumstances I would have expected this to be definitely blocked by the regulators, but some of the reports about Three struggling and the Government pulling strings behind the scenes makes me wonder. I would guess EE and VMO2 will have to thrown some sweeteners to make this palatable to them. Without the other two big providers being onboard, it'll likely go to court and probably be blocked through litigation.

Lol, EE and Three jointly own Mobile Broadband Network Limited (MBNL). No doubt that'll be complicated to unwind, assuming they bother to.

"A strong rate of service sector growth meant that the
UK economy started the second quarter of 2023 in
positive fashion. Overall private sector output expanded
at the fastest pace for one year, despite another fall in
manufacturing production during April.
"Service providers experienced the steepest upturn in
new work for 13 months as resilient consumer spending
combined with a turnaround in demand for business
services to boost overall order books. Survey respondents
often cited an improvement in clients' willingness to spend,
helped by greater confidence with regards to the near-term
economic outlook.
"Strong growth in spending on travel, tourism and leisure
was a tailwind for the service economy in April, alongside
a sustained recovery in international visitors. Total new
orders from abroad have now increased for five months
running, in contrast to the protracted decline in export
sales reported by goods producers.
"While the growth outlook has improved considerably for the
service economy this spring, a swift rebound in customer
demand appears to have reignited inflationary pressures.
Both input costs and average prices charged increased at
faster rates in April, which service providers overwhelmingly
attributed to greater staff wages. Some 34% of the survey
panel reported a rise in their prices charged in April, which
was around three times higher than the pre-pandemic
average."

https://www.pmi.spglobal.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/c0b7e85e2d1e4569a785456b789068be

"It will not be big gainer for the sp at least initially. Assets and some debt will come off the balance sheet, then a smaller share of the uk market will go back on. It will shrink the company, not expand it."

Much will depend on what's included in the merger. For example Vodafone took over Cable & Wireless Worldwide 10 years ago and have since carved out some of the assets and moved them into group. I suspect things like submarine Cables and Earth Station facilities will remain with Vodafone Group and not included in this merger. I suspect the UK merger wont include all of Vodafone's UK assets.

Typo correction

"and used that to" knock "stock prices"

The PMI data is clearly a positive for the UK economy, but notice how the vested interests twist the narrative to suit the direction they want to push stocks in. Somehow they're saying a reduced risk of recession is a bad thing, because it'll likely increase inflation and subsequently increase the chance of higher interest rates, but if the PMI would have been lower the headlines would have suggested that the UK economy is in the toilet, and used that to know stock prices; Heads you lose, Tails you lose, clearly the big players want to push down UK stock prices irrespective of any positive news. On the plus side, our dividend reinvestments will buy more stock at a lower price.

"Let's pretend that" "you would now have £25m and be among the richest men on Earth. £500k vs. £25m."

Lets pretend we had a machine that could look into the future, we'd all be billionaires.

"I love my divi paying shares."

Me too.

"With banks like ATOM and Close Bros paying 4.8% interest on savings Lloyds is going to have to up its divi to make it more attractive to investors"

For those banks offering higher interest rates, it's likely they're using depositor money for riskier investments. If Atom are offering such higher interest rates, then it stands to reason their margins will be much lower than the big banks and they are likely trying to attract savers with larger savings, so at more risk of deposit flight if they're targeted by market predators. SVB failed because it had relatively few depositors who had a lot on deposit, so it was an easy target for predatory market players; I've read it was a tweet that killed SVB.

"Fleccy, have heard it all, mate."

Well between me and my wife, we're looking at pulling in around £23,000 in dividends over the current financial year. Because my wife's a non earner and the fact that half of our investments are now in ISA's, our dividend income is all tax free. We've reinvested dividends for over 25 years, so although we're currently showing a capital paper loss, much of our stock has been built up from reinvesting dividends, so in reality we're actually up on our invested capital from other income sources, and did I mention we're generating income of around £23,000 a year?

"They were the first port of call for my mortgage and they rejected my application. Huge mistake losing them my business. How many more did Lloyds make?"

My Son's just remortgaged on a 5 year fixed rate of just over 4%, with the Halifax, and didn't have any issues at all. He has a good chunk of equity built up so is low risk. If your were refused a mortgage, then it suggest you either didn't have enough equity built up, or too low a deposit. From what you've said, it appears Lloyds are risk averse to lending out money at higher risk levels, as an investor I see this as a positive.

"Surprised lower again this morning, at least Metro starting to get attention. Most volume there yesterday for two years!"

What's the betting the price climbs leading up to the dividend payout? Probably because many people, like me, will be looking at reinvesting dividends in ISA's

"What's more, dividend investing has been out of fashion for over quarter of a century. But UK investors cannot stop their outdated obsession with dividends -- at the expense of growth. No growth = no share growth."

Skier, your comment above suggests you've never read about the compounding effect of dividend reinvestment, or the fact that reinvesting dividends grows the size of your portfolio. Even when the price of your dividend stocks drop, your dividend reinvestment buys more stock and generates even more dividends at subsequent payouts. It's incorrect to describe dividend stocks as low or no growth, since dividend reinvestment clearly works for many, Another disadvantage of "growth" stocks is that your money can sit there for years, should the price stagnate, leaving you with low capital growth, or possibly a loss..

Lloyds is down today because the market is using sentiment around the US regional Banks to knock all banking stocks. The likely reason the US regionals are being targeted is to try and persuade the FED to pause interest rate rises. I have no idea why Lloyds is showing a bigger drop than Natwest today, probably the same reason Natwest dropped further than Lloyds on their results day. Either way it has nothing to do with Brexit.

Will all the Remainers who post political opinions please do one, since Brexit is done and dusted and no amount of Remainer moaning will change that.

"Yeah. It's really easy to manipulate a 30 billion pound company. "

No more difficult than manipulating currency markets with trading in the Trillions,

"Why would they even want to?"

Maybe because it suits a narrative aimed at a particular market or sector. For example I've watched headlines trashing the UK market and see UK companies undervalued with bargain basement P/E's. I've seen individual companies targeted with ridiculous speculative articles and timed drops driving the price down coinciding with the media outburst. It appears to me that there's been a concerted attack on the pricing of UK stocks, in various sectors, leaving the UK market undervalued relative to other markets.

"And of course, some idiot blames the mm's. Nothing to do with buys and sells then? Laughable"

Actually brokers and various market entities can direct trades as they see fit, splitting then between On Exchange and Off Exchange. Dependent on volumes Algo's can move prices On Exchange as they see fit, probably not so much in the case of Lloyds though. In my opinion, all trades should be only be allowed On Exchange, since Off Exchange trades skew the pricing mechanism for stocks and allow big players an opportunity to manipulate prices.

"Can’t believe the MM’s dropped it. How much more profit do they want?"

The market's rigged, the whole sector is currently being punished for the US regional Bank's fiasco. It i'sn't a problem unless you have to sell.