Member Info for fleccy

Correction:

"Underlying net interest income up 18 per cent, primarily driven by a stronger banking net interest margin of 2.94 per cent in the year (3.22 per cent in the fourth quarter) and increased average interest-earning assets"

https://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com/assets/pdfs/investors/financial-performance/lloyds-banking-group-plc/2022/full-year/2022-lbg-fy-results.pdf

"Would u like to tell me how 10%+ inflation has helped the Lloyd's share price and dividend."

Lloyds share price action is easy to explain, its a long term aversion by institutional investors to invest in UK stocks, and more recently panic due to the events around US Banks and Credit Suisse. The debased dividend was a internal decision by Lloyds BOD, to spend more on buybacks than on dividends; So the share price is market sentiment and the dividend value is an internal decision by Lloyds.
Lloyds Bank is currently undervalued on fundamentals, that doesn't mean it will always be the case. The BOE have to win the fight against inflation, so interest rates will remain high for as long as it takes, Lloyds benefits through its NIM of around 3.22%. The ratio of Uninsured deposits to to total deposits is just under 40%, if I've read the figures correctly.

https://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com/assets/pdfs/investors/financial-performance/lloyds-banking-group-plc/2022/full-year/2022-lbg-form-20f.pdf

"Certainly you need patience to watch your investment decline through the ravages of inflation and management incompetence and disregard of the small shareholders."

Actually you have that back to front, Inflation destroys the spending value of your cash, whereas hard assets and stocks are a hedge against inflation. There's an argument that inflation drives cash into stocks and other assets like Property and Gold. As far as the Banks are concerned, they will eventually benefit from higher interest rates and UK Banks aren't the same as US Banks.
US mortgages are predominantly fixed interest over the long term, so homebuyers, or commercial property buyers, lock in the rate over 30 years, with the current average interest rate for a 30-year fixed US mortgage around 7.00%. UK Banks offer fixed rate mortgages over shorter time periods; In the UK the average mortgage rates are:
Average two-year fixed-rate in the UK is 5.13% (75% LTV)
Average five-year fixed-rate in the UK is 4.76% (75% LTV)
Average two-year variable-rate in the UK is 4.59% (75% LTV)
Average standard variable rate (SVR) in the UK is 7.23%

The way the US Banks operate is fundamentally different from the UK, US Mortgage holders can mail the keys to the Bank and walk away, in the UK it doesn't work that way. Many current US Mortgage and Loan holders are locked in at a lower level than the base rate, but the problem is new entrants are balking at the high interest rates on a 30 year Mortgage. Who wants to be locked in for 30 years at a 7% interest rate? Especially since interest rates have been historically low for a very long time, and because of that the US housing market is showing signs of slowing down dramatically. Some US cash rich investors will go into property, even if interest rates are high, since they perceive that the value of their cash will degrade due to high inflation; Younger entrants, looking to buy their first home, probably wont.
Credit Suisse will likely be taken over, their brand is destroyed and they are begging to be taken over. SVB was a victim of their investment strategy, investing in long term US Bonds set against short term deposits and falling victim to the herd mentality of their target depositor base.
What I'm saying is don't confuse US and UK Banks, they operate differently.

It's a bit strange Ofcom released this on a Friday, just before the weekend, knowing it would affect sentiment toward BT and gifting the Sunday papers plenty of Headline fodder, as well as promoting Ofcom's regulatory credentials. Ofcom seem to be on a power trip and picking on an easy target in BT.
I might send another email to my MP asking why the UK feels the need to cripple our national champions into obscurity. The UK could never have created a Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, or Apple, because the Government and regulators would have nobbled them well before they could grow into significant companies. They won't even try and hold onto the established companies, like ARM or Cadbury, and how many fledgling companies either get bought out by other country's national champions, or up sticks and list elsewhere? We're like a nursery for fledglings, but leave the doors open for anyone to scoop up the ones showing signs of success. What a weak and feckless bunch our politicians are, the UK has become a jumble sale where predators swoop in and take anything of value at a knock down price.

"In the meantime waiting a further two months may well kill the BT share price. We all know that the market hates uncertainty"

As I implied in another thread, April 6th is just around the corner.

"They are going to take another 2 months to consider their decision. My gut tells me that they will make BT change some of their offering which won't bode well."

I don't think they could ask them to change anything, since Equinox 2 isn't anticompetitive. This is more about political theatre in my opinion. Ofcom will likely say, we had a good look at the offer and studied all the points raised by competitors, but we can't see any justification to block this offer. If Ofcom do block it, they'll just open another can of worms and Jansen could then decide to come out fighting, with BT taking Ofcom to court.

If you look at the full text of his statements, clearly his words were taken out of context.

" “There is only going to be one national network” was part of a broader discussion about the truly national ambition Openreach has – both urban and rural – and the progress they’re making towards that. It was not in any way a comment about other builders.

“Why do you need multiple providers?”, was preceded with (but not reported): “If you are a CP, you would probably prefer one wholesaler with one technical solution, if they can give you the geographic coverage you want...” It was therefore about potential CP preference, not the broader market.

“No one else has got a machine anywhere near ours. It’s?.?.?.?unstoppable.” This was in answer to a question on the scale of ambition and my confidence in Openreach’s ability to deliver a truly nationwide network.

When asked about the likely future shape of the market, I said I believed there would probably be two players with major footprints – BT Group and VM-O2 – and then a number of alt nets who have built strong businesses. I then gave the example of [?] which has five builders, to say that inevitably that this kind of overbuild could “end in tears” for some. Again, it was not a comment about the whole market and does not reflect the wider context in which it was delivered."

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0027/255528/letter-philip-jansen-to-melanie-dawes-060223.pdf

It's open house on BT bashing by the Altnets, but as soon as BT says something they don't like, they throw their toys out of the pram.
This delay is political theatre, I'll be gob smacked if OFCOM prevent Openreach from competing on pricing. Clearly Openreach have been extremely careful in designing the Equinox offers, I doubt OFCOM would have any justification to block the offer.

The new tax year is just around the corner, if the price hasn't recovered by then it's an opportunity for topping up in ISA's.

"We have a World wide debt bubble of $400 trillion. This is 1930s happening all over again."

If that's the case, then the best place for your money is investments in relatively "safe" stocks.

BTC is doomed, it just doesn't know it yet.

"Well Addision has now officially called it . 5p-8p tomorrow.
I am calling 25p by December 23. With BTC at $70k."

More like 0.5p and BTC below $13,000 by the end of this year.

"can a new ceo turn this company around I'm not sure, but hoping this will move out of the pound shop soon"

Does anyone else find it strange that there's been no news around who'll become the new CEO? Read's consulting position finishes at the end of this month and It was back in January that Vodafone apparently hired recruitment consultants Egon Zehnder, but it's gone very quiet. You'd think there would be some big names who'd want to become CEO of a company like VOD, but even the rumours appear to have stopped. I'm still mildly suspicious that a big merger may be in the pipeline and I don't mean the Vodafone UK/Three merger.

"so whats ur postive spin? how will share price recover to what it was 5 years ago?
how is vodafone not going to cut dividend. its at 8.5% plus today"

Vodafone may, or may not cancel the dividend, but that subject has been flogged to death. The price will go where the market decides to send it, but the stock is good value at the current price, taking into account the cash flow and the assets. Clearly Liberty and E& see something you don't and maybe even know something you don't. Just because VOD is currently sitting at under £1 now, doesn't mean it wont be £2 in a couple of years, which would be far more likely than it dropping to 30p as someone else mentioned recently.

0.5% increase

mehmehmeh and Mikeyh68, it doesn't bother me, but don't you get bored of constantly posting negative spin day after day? Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but the content of your posts aren't even convincing. By all means carry on if you wish, but it's only your own time you're wasting.

"This is a global banking fundamental problem that is not going away anytime soon."

Credit Suisse has a relatively strong balance sheet, but its brand is trashed. As far as the rhetoric around Global Banking, I see it as an opportunity to top up. We're only putting money into ISA's now, but we will be topping up with Lloyds next month, so I'm hoping the price drops further between now and then; I believe all this will all blow over by the summer.
It seems to be the US small regional banks that currently have a problem, I think the FED and big US banks have enough firepower to clean their own house.

Can't come quick enough for me.

This is a blog from 4 years ago, discussing the problems with using Machine Learning (AI) to find patterns in SHA256. Because of the potential profits, around speeding up the Bitcoin mining process, mathematicians and various others have been looking at alternatives to brute force for at least the last 10 years.

https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/366272/can-machine-learning-decode-the-sha256-hashes

It's worth weighing up the probability of QBT achieving their goal using conventional GPU's/ASIC's/etc. It's the sort of problem commercial Quantum computers would likely solve very quickly, but they are many years away.

"As of 16th march 2023 no patent application has been filed"

What they're trying to achieve is mathematically challenging in the extreme. They should put a call into the Impossible Mission Force, maybe Ethan Hunt and his team can sort something out.

"Hmmmm?
I wonder where funding could be headed?"

From what he said the money will be aimed at Hardware and not software/algo's. Should they manage to build a million Qubit computer, in the next 10 years, it wont be used to mine Bitcoin; The most likely uses for the first commercially viable Quantum computers, will be things like molecular Biology, materials science and other useful applications, Bitcoin Mining wont even appear on the list of uses.