Member Info for fleccy

If you throw Deutsche Telekom into the mix. DT is up over 15% over the last 6 months, possibly due to its nearly 50% ownership of T Mobile, whereas BT is down nearly 20% meaning DT has outperformed BT by around 35% in the period.

https://www.google.com/finance/quote/BT.A:LON?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjXiajj7t75AhUUS0EAHY7cA98Q_AUoA3oECAIQDQ&window=6M&comparison=INDEXFTSE%3AUKX%2CLON%3AVOD%2CETR%3ADTE

Now for those that say DT may acquire BT, the only way that'd be possible is if DT sold out of their stake in T Mobile, as they're apparently sitting on debt that dwarfs BT's Debt.
"What Is Deutsche Telekom's Debt?
As you can see below, Deutsche Telekom had €110.6b of debt, at March 2022, which is about the same as the year before. You can click the chart for greater detail. However, it also had €9.88b in cash, and so its net debt is €100.7b.
A Look At Deutsche Telekom's Liabilities
Zooming in on the latest balance sheet data, we can see that Deutsche Telekom had liabilities of €36.5b due within 12 months and liabilities of €168.3b due beyond that. On the other hand, it had cash of €9.88b and €17.8b worth of receivables due within a year. So its liabilities total €177.1b more than the combination of its cash and short-term receivables."

https://simplywall.st/stocks/de/telecom/etr-dte/deutsche-telekom-shares/news/is-deutsche-telekom-etrdte-using-too-much-debt-1

Apparently T Mobile doesn't pay a dividend, and currently has no intention of doing so. Even though T Mobile revenue, Net Income, Net Cash, and Free Cash Flow is really good, it doesn't currently help DT with its debt, as far as I can tell.

OK, DT has a fantastic asset in its controlling position in T Mobile, but it doesn't help with the current debt. Although DT's revenue is over 108 Billion Euro's, its Net Profit is 5.9 billion euros, and they're projecting 2022 free cash flow to be around 10 billion euros.

https://www.telekom.com/en/media/media-information/archive/financial-report-2021-646700

Obviously DT is bigger than BT, but they're faced with higher upgrade costs in their home market, have higher debt than their revenue, any profit associated with their share of T Mobile is currently locked in, and not currently benefiting them financially. Why is DT's outperforming BT and Vodafone over the last 6 months? It's a mystery to me.

In the abscence of any real news, and results that were ok, this is what manipulation looks like on a chart.

https://www.google.com/finance/quote/BT.A:LON?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjXiajj7t75AhUUS0EAHY7cA98Q_AUoA3oECAIQDQ&comparison=INDEXFTSE%3AUKX&window=6M

"Why is this Tesla board now?"

Porsche1946 posts require a response, especially since he decided to trash talk all UK stocks, and pump overvalued US stocks.

"Tesla isnt just EV - they have hundreds of thousands of people paying say $200 a month subscription to use auto driving software"

Apple are working on self driving AI software and if there's any profit there it wont be long before the likes of Amazon and Google look at producing software too. There's no part of Tesla's business that isn't threatened by competition. Much of Tesla's profit is down to selling EV regulatory credits, which it receives for free, that isn't necessarily a long term income stream as competition ramps up. Would you pay $15,000, or $200 a month for full self driving software? Especially since your potentially risking your, and your, family's, life on some software that still has issues.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/15/tesla-autopilot-crashes/

https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/18/nhtsa-probes-tesla-autopilot-crash-that-killed-three-people/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANxShev1XQ3c6ikCqtOYgOtrKnSWsOEBj9d9DaLxRUm2AGfIDIdPvmU7uMveqLYXFoG1KJSJhiJ6PsKUr9oHqQLK8BAL0yLvhp8pZWrxQVqJUdv4YX2j66IaZjkRPz-Sfol5c3E6JFbQM1a49ZF8jEKcswzxAkccrdyjmP09Dpit#:~:text=A%20U.S.%20federal%20agency%20is,steering%2C%20accelerating%20and%20automatic%20braking.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11052501/Biker-killed-Tesla-Autopilot-smashes-Harley-Davidson.html

I wonder if any future Death Race sequels will feature Tesla's on Autopilot. They could call it the Model F (Frankenstein).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mnG_Gbxf_w

Yawnnnnnnnnnn. Tesla's a rubbish overpriced investment at 107 P/E ratio. The other manufacturers are heavily investing in EV, and other companies are now building EV battery manufacturing plants. I'm not anticipating Tesla will go bust, but it wouldn't surprise me if it lost 4/5 of its share price as other manufacturers EV's become popular. A fair price for Tesla is probably somewhere in the region of $180 a share.

"Dan, we all like Fleccys very optimistic posts mate and we really want to believe, if you listen to the likes of Hargreaves Lansdowne they will tell you, be prepared to invest in a share for at least 5 years, what they don't tell you is which 5 years ?"

I don't think my posts are optimistic, they just reflect my honest opinions. If you want a easy example of a stock beaten down by the media, take a look at BT; Telegraph stories pop up out of the blue about VMO2 and Sky forming a Fibre partnership, or VMO2 taking over Talk Talk and BT's share price immediately takes a hammering, even though it's highly improbable the stories have any real substance; Or they'll bang on about BT's Pension deficit and debt, neither of which are an issue for the company. What you'll rarely read about is BT's projected cost savings going forward, or the value of the Fibre they're putting in the ground, or the value of the individual assets like EE making up the whole. If BT is so cr@p, why are investment funds lending Billions to Altnets to build a fraction of the future FTTP geographic coverage of Openreach?
The reason I focused on BT, in the last paragraph, is because the positives are clear to see as well as easy to explain, and the negative sentiment projected in the media is also easy to spot. Vodafone's a much more complex beast, with a wide range of companies controlled by Group, but Vodafone is a cash printing dividend paying machine in a safe sector, and I can't see any reason why it shouldn't be at least 160p to £2 in the future.
Since I have no immediate plans to sell any of my investments, I really don't care how low they drop, it just means I get more stock when I reinvest the dividends, leading to higher dividends at the next payout, and so on until the prices recover.

"I did know of a Steve Wilson, but he worked in the North West"

Actually that's not quite right, I think he was based on the other side of the Pennines.

"Use to do a lot of work for Steve Wilson I think his name was"

I did know of a Steve Wilson, but he worked in the North West not London. I had many bosses over the years, the department boss for Submarine Cable Operations was Rick Perry when I started, you've probably heard of him he was very well known in the company.

I too was ex Mercury/ C&W/C&WW, then 6 years at Vodafone up to finishing at the end of 2019. I worked for over 20 years in Field Maintenance, with the last 10 years in Submarine Cable operations. What was your role Mikey, we're you in an Engineering role?

"Whats the betting we finish on lows of the day - so glad i retired"

I used to work for Vodafone Mikey, what was your role in the company?

Porsche showing off with his car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rxNXu0Abs0&t

"I am surprised the Hungary sale doesn't appear to have gone down very well? Do you think it was a mistake to sell?"

I don't like it when companies I'm invested in shed emerging market assets, it put me off Barclays when they significantly reduced their African business.
I've speculated as to why VOD might be selling their Hungary business, and thought of a few possibilities. Viktor Orban is quite a controversial figure, with the Hungary Government having shades of autocracy, right wing views, and Orban being friendly toward Russia and the Kremlin. After the sale, the Hungarian state will own 49% through Corvinous, with the rest owned by 4iG Nyrt, a Budapest-based IT service company, so it may be that Vodafone were encouraged to sell by the Hungarian state. Even though Hungary is part of the EU, it isn't in the Eurozone and uses the Hungarian Forint as its national currency, so like Turkey presents currency conversion risks especially in an inflationary environment. There are possibly some risks for investments in Hungary, but that is highly speculative and may not be correct.
Even though I have no idea if this is a good decision, or a mistake, I suspect Vodafone had good reason to make this sale at what appears to be a reasonable price in the current macro environment.

"Fleccy Im sat in lloyds but not Bt. Banks will eventually get a windfall tax, they will be hit in a couple of years time, just remember to get off the roundabout before then."

I'm not sure that'll happen, the overall Economy is so dependent on Bank lending the Government would be reluctant to reduce their ability to lend to business.
BT, Lloyds, Vodafone are unbelievably cheap in my opinion, and even though recessionary clouds are building I don't see any of them under threat in a recessionary environment. Lloyds will benefit from higher interest rates, BT and Vodafone have the ability to raise prices to compensate for any inflation in their costs. All three pay dividends, which makes them more attractive and something they could cut to protect their finances, should inflation become persistant, and they need to offer more value to customers. People are now so dependent on their phones and broadband, they probably view them as a necessity rather than a luxury; Things like holidays, Air Travel, hospitality, and non essential retail would be the first things to suffer in a persistant inflationary environment, in my opinion.

I think the investigation was more about sending a message. With an 18% holding he's still well below the 30% threshold, and without a seat on the board he doesn't have any influence over board decisions. Should he collude with other large shareholders to influence BT, then I expect the Government would step in. I assume he didn't do anything nefarious in building his 18% stake, but why would he need to with the lax regulatory environment allowing big players to accumulate stock on the quiet, avoiding major discosure rules?

"with Derivatives you are talking about banning a Futures market - never going to happen.....it is all an enormous market that dwarfs any tiny piddly Retail Investor involvement ...you would lose so much Tax Income that you would have to have it back online before the day was out ...it is also a hedging platform to hedge your future expectations"

None of that's required, they could open the exchanges/markets 24 hours a day and there'd be no need for a futures market.
The big investment firms create stuff out of thin air, and then get the regulatory authorities to make them legitimate. The big money behind Crypto is currently trying to legitimise it by getting the US regulatory authorities to classify it as either commodities, or securities, and authorise regulated spot bitcoin ETF's, which will then satisfy compliance departments allowing large inflows from institutional funds, like pensions, leading to big jumps in the price of Bitcoin; No doubt other crypto would also then find their way into spot ETF's too. Personally I think all Crypto is pointless cr@p and overhyped beyond belief, why would any regulator legitimise something that's created out of thin air? But like everything in this post it's just my opinion.
Sleight of hand by the market isn't anything new either, look at the subprime fiasco around CDO's, ratings agencies paid to classify them as AAA, slice em, dice em, abracadabra and you get a goose that lays golden eggs, except they were rotten eggs sprayed with gold paint.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_rating_agencies_and_the_subprime_crisis

"No we could be in trouble - finish below £1.20 - more like £1 here we come - its ok though Read has done a great job these last 3 years"

You're only in trouble if you're sitting on a paper loss and desperate to sell. Looking at the 6 month chart it wont be below 120p for very long. I'm getting my Lloyds and BT dividends next month, and still sitting on my Vodafone dividends; Depending on where I see the most value will determine where I top up next month, it could easily be Vodafone.

If it was down to me I'd ban any Off Exchange and Derivative trading, forcing all trading On Exchange. All these different contracts, Dark Pool trading platforms, and any Off Exchange form of trading is there for only one reason in my opinion, to allow big money players to gain advantage over retail. Another alternative is to ensure all Off Book trades are reported instantly and used for On Exchange price discovery. I suspect had Drahi been forced to purchase his 18% On Exchange, the trades would have been visible and the price would have gone up considerably more than it did.

Just took a look at your link, looks as though Dec 22 Puts are showing 553 at 150, 253 at 160, and 2600 at 170. The Dec 22 Calls are showing 2600 at 180 and 29 at 280. I have no idea how to interpret, the Dec 22 Calls/Puts.

"As for Vodafone buying Mannesman, that was a complete disaster, but that's history long gone."

I believe it was an all share buyout, with Mannesmann shareholders taking just under 50% of the combined entity. At the time, due to the dotcom bubble, Vodafone shares were around £5; Mannesmann shares were probably overvalued at the time too. It's hard to know if the Vodafone /Mannesmann could be described as a disaster, since I believe the merger was based on shares and not cash.

"This is going under a quid and dividend will be cut, theres no money in telecoms ( look at crxp like BT ) but the debt is the killer here. Ftse at less than it was 22 years ago, omFg, this winter the U.K. and indexes are heading back to the 1970’s. Terminal."

Porsche why do you bother posting, if you're so successful at timing your investments after the fact? You should peddle your Walter Mitty nonsense elsewhere, I don't see any substance in anything you've said, and most others probably dismiss your fiction too.