Member Info for fleccy

"So expect calls for 'windfall' taxes, and so long as getty has an image of a old person at a food bank, the charmingly unbiased BBC will have hours of not so subtle brainwashing to stir up the nere do wells."

Somebody tap the needle, the records stuck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqtb6XBBBRc

"Wouldn't surprise me if the markets honed in on the drop in deposits."

Probably a trade off between maintaining a good NIM and offering savers competitive interest rates on savings. Some of the products banks use are regular savings accounts with reasonable interest rates and long term savings, with the amount of monthly inflow into current accounts a factor.

If the market can find anything to be negative, they'll look for it. Fortunately the impairment is only 243 Million for the quarter, which seems reasonably low in my opinion.

"Asset quality remains resilient with impairment levels low. Due to the ongoing inflationary pressures on affordability, the Group has observed modest increases in levels of new to arrears in some portfolios and flows to default, although levels remain at or below pre-pandemic experience. Underlying impairment was a net charge of £243 million (three months to 31 March 2022: £177 million), resulting in an asset quality ratio of 22 basis points. This charge is after a £79 million multiple economic scenarios (MES) credit (three months to 31 March 2022: £27 million charge), as a result of the slightly improved economic outlook in the first quarter. This reflects a pre-updated MES charge of £322 million in the period (three months to 31 March 2022: £150 million, three months to 31 December 2022: £383 million), equivalent to an asset quality ratio of 28 basis points. The increase reflects the expected credit loss (ECL) allowance build from Stage 1 loans rolling forward into a more adverse economic outlook, as well as increased flows to default primarily driven by legacy UK mortgage portfolios and charges on existing Stage 3 clients in Commercial Banking."

The market will struggle to find anything to be negative about in these results, although I'm sure they'll do their best and find something.

"It’s probably all BT’s fault"

I assume you were being ironic. The fault lies with the business models of the Altnets and the investors who were throwing money at them, under the impression that OFCOM would act in their favour no matter what BT did. OFCOM can't ignore the amount of investment BT are directing at FTTP, especially since BT are completely replacing their access network. The likes of Goldman Sachs, Fern trading, etc may be funding the Altnets, but it's the BT shareholders who're funding the BT/Openreach Fibre rollout. CityFibre rhetoric is the business equivalent of getting on their knees and begging OFCOM to hold Openreach back, but competition works both ways and OFCOM need to act fairly toward all parties..
There appears to be a general trend developing, for international business figures to cajole UK regulators to act on their behalf by using threats, even at the expense of UK business; The Microsoft/Activision rants are a good example of what's been happening recently, and highlights the sort of rhetoric aimed at the UK. The UK has allowed foreign companies to profit at the expense of UK companies for many years, and if the UK is to prosper going forward the UK Government and regulators are going to have to kick back, and get medieval on unfair practices if necessary. US big Tech have been allowed to squash competition through acquisition, becoming Giants, and now that times are changing they shouldn't be allowed to scream foul, just because they're not getting their own way.

Just to add some balance to the theme of this thread.

"S&P Global's final Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for manufacturing, which accounts for about a fifth of Germany's economy, fell by 0.2 points on the month to 44.5, the third consecutive monthly decline and the lowest reading since May 2020."

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/german-manufacturing-contracts-april-output-ticks-up-pmi-2023-05-02/

"Manufacturing PMI in France decreased to 45.60 points in April from 47.30 points in March of 2023. This is slightly above the consensus figure of 45.5.

It marked the third consecutive month of contraction in French factory activity and the fastest since May 2020 amid a considerable weakening of demand conditions."

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3963113-france-manufacturing-pmi-at-456-in-april

That's been the formula since 2008, which is why you choose bank investments carefully. Lloyds is an extremely safe bank and investment, nothing like SVB, or FRC.

Can we please NOT follow the Vodafone chat trend of filling the board with share price predictions? It starts like this and before you know it it fills the page like a rash.

Apologies for the failed link, you can link to the PDF document at the bottom of the summary in this link:

https://www.dbrsmorningstar.com/research/411597/manageable-impact-from-debt-unrealised-losses-for-large-uk-banks-robust-funding-and-liquidity-positions

It isn't an issue for UK Banks.

https://www.dbrsmorningstar.com/document/411597.pdf?Expires=1682945963&Policy=eyJTdGF0ZW1lbnQiOlt7IlJlc291cmNlIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZGJyc21vcm5pbmdzdGFyLmNvbS9kb2N1bWVudC80MTE1OTcucGRmIiwiQ29uZGl0aW9uIjp7IkRhdGVMZXNzVGhhbiI6eyJBV1M6RXBvY2hUaW1lIjoxNjgyOTQ1OTYzfX19XX0_&Signature=q4pjfzEN8R5Asmko9tMjWNJLzJcr~a9p2d3POqfVIi00pq0Bh-sR1APyD~CQgCKyQa2wr7u4LxKa3P94W6B6kVY8~lShwnIMJ11nJFlYE0InBs~Rr6q6esSy4nI6kmfIQj-M50~yj53n-4cTBLzzYQMX472KpMRYe5lXd5VTeWKkDqiIkN9rOYTxpgJ5~XAJLsNiXFEAy8yJPH8X8eUtUB7L1wy5IhFFB3bsamULPSCLPD~rKYZVkJa-1YMOpd9ZXruH59pWnBDyMG34jWhA9nSR5njnlp37K3bSMvzubUX19Q3sainiJ6WrkN0KYpB4rqx3281hv5Nij~ih2nSmkw__&Key-Pair-Id=KNWV36WLG7L4J

“The London Stock Exchange Group has just teamed up with digital asset derivates platform Global Futures and Options (GFO-X) to bring regulated bitcoin futures and options products to UK investors for the first time ever”

That doesn't mean they're directly investing in Bitcoin, it's most likely cash settled futures
meaning all transactions will be cash settled and wont involve any trading in Bitcoin.

Bertram, I'm no fan of Buybacks in preference to dividends, but your assertions are just wrong. The Buybacks save the bank money in dividend payouts and increases earnings per share; As long as they use the saved cash for rewarding shareholders through higher future dividends then I'll likely be happy. What's clear is that many investors felt aggrieved by the debasement of the dividend post pandemic, me included, but what's done is done. In some respects we've benefited from the pandemic dividend cuts, since I've topped up my holdings considerably during the period as share prices dropped, and as a result our dividend income has increased considerably post pandemic, even with the reduced dividend per share payouts. If the companies we're invested in keep to their word and progressively increase dividends, going forward, then our income will will increase considerably in the coming years and the debasements wont matter that much. For people who didn't fill their boots while the pandemic raged, I understand how they'd be more aggrieved.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4597912-vodafone-investors-will-benefit-from-new-leadership

LTI you're reading too much into what I said, it was a simple comment communicating that I'm only interested in the Total Voting Rights at the end of each month, since that's all that counts in the scheme of things.
As far as Block listings and share buybacks are concerned, what I stated is factually correct. For example if you look at the bar chart I produced, showing the monthly T.V.R change, you'll notice May 2022 shows a much lower reduction in the Total Voting rights in the midst of that buyback period, a reduction of just 19.292 million shares in that month:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vS0oSavIsBjHgD7k6NMyk7Z591Cm2IrevvLI-Jq95gOmESrOI0Vi_NhA8LIO9rMz90Y5zCOCoFuEItG/pubchart?oid=1451011517&format=interactive

The reason there was a much smaller reduction in the T.V.R that month, was due to a Block listing of 585,000,000 shares on the 11th May. The point I was making, in my original post, is that I don't need to look at every individual Buyback and Block Listing to get a picture of what's going on.

https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/LLOY/block-listing-of-shares-bjrl8lbr0nruzxc.html

I'm not sure why you took issue with what I said in my earlier post.

This is what I said:
"I've taken to ignoring the buybacks, and just focusing on the Total Voting Rights at the end of every month. Once the buybacks are completed, assuming they don't announce further buybacks, the Total Voting rights will show the result of any Block Issuances for share saves and bonuses going forward. In the end the only thing that counts is the amount of shares in issue."

All I was saying is that I'm not interested in looking at every single Buyback and every single Block listing; I'm only interested in the monthly Total Voting Rights figure, which nicely summarises the results of both buybacks and block listings, what's wrong with what I said?

I don't disagree with anything you're saying, I was just pointing out that Block listings add to the shares issued and Buybacks subtract from the shares issued. I don't care about a "reduction in share count of about 12 Billion shares over what it would otherwise have been", all I care about is the amount of shares issued while I remain a shareholder.
Lloyds could buy shares on the open market, and put them into treasury for sharesaves and Bonuses, instead of using Block listings and then Block listings wouldn't show up in the shares issued calculation. It doesn't matter if you say Block listings subtract from the Buyback figures, or add to the shares issued figure, in the end the only thing that counts is the amount of shares issued.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vS0oSavIsBjHgD7k6NMyk7Z591Cm2IrevvLI-Jq95gOmESrOI0Vi_NhA8LIO9rMz90Y5zCOCoFuEItG/pubchart?oid=1451011517&format=interactive

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vS0oSavIsBjHgD7k6NMyk7Z591Cm2IrevvLI-Jq95gOmESrOI0Vi_NhA8LIO9rMz90Y5zCOCoFuEItG/pubchart?oid=1812824850&format=interactive

The block listings increment the shares issued and the buybacks subtract from the shares issued, so although they may not be the same thing they both affect the Total shares issued.

"not really, a lot of share additions have been paid for by employees meaning money going to Lloyds."

I don't see it that way. Disregard all the other things and it comes down to the amount of shares in circulation, and the Earnings Per Share. It's like baking a cake, you can look at all the ingredients in isolation, but the final cake is what counts and in this particular case the cake is the amount of shares issued.

I've taken to ignoring the buybacks, and just focusing on the Total Voting Rights at the end of every month. Once the buybacks are completed, assuming they don't announce further buybacks, the Total Voting rights will show the result of any Block Issuances for share saves and bonuses going forward. In the end the only thing that counts is the amount of shares in issue.

"Their offer price would only need to match highest price paid by them in previous 12 months. If they wait till Sept they only need to offer 110p. Would you take it?"

There's a huge flaw in your thinking. Atlas 2022 Holdings Limited would have to accumulate another 16% of Vodafone stock to initiate a takeover attempt and under those circumstances the price would increase significantly as market speculators mark up the price, to reflect the valuation of the assets vs liabilities. I can guarantee the price would climb significantly above 110p under those circumstances, probably somewhere between 160p and £2.
As far as Vodafone going forward, they've telegraphed that they're refocusing on certain target "Core Markets" since about 2017/18. Assuming they stay independent, I imagine they'll sell of various assets over time and use the money to pay down the debt, and strengthen their position in target markets. To be honest it wouldn't surprise me to see VOD being involved in a mega merger, with a US giant like Verizon, which is something I've speculated about previously.

" I'm wondering if i should buy Legal and General."

You're free to invest where you wish, it's your money and as long as people Do Their Own Research and are happy to invest in Vodafone, they're also free to invest where they please. How do you know VOD wont be a good investment for people coming in now? One big difference between VOD and LGEN, is that outside players are running the slide rule over Vodafone's business and assets. Vodafone's is certainly a more exciting play than LGEN and with such a low share price probably not much riskier.