Member Info for fleccy

''The sole purpose of the programme is to reduce the ordinary share capital of the Company.''

Which inreases the EPS lol. It's the increase in EPS that directly drives the share price up. EPS is a metric used to determine the price per share. Granted EPS isn't the only metric used to value a company, but assuming a company is profitable, and doesn't borrow to buyback stock, then the P/E won't change, but EPS will double in the example I gave. In the US, many companies borrowed at low interest rates to buyback stock, increasing the EPS, and it still drove their stock prices to dizzy levels even though debt increased. One big thing the buybacks do, is help the management increase the value of the shares they've issued for schemes. Dividends would have been better for me, since I would have had a choice on whether to buy more Lloyds stock, or spend the cash, as it is I don't have that choice.

"Clearly the most direct effect of Buybacks is to increase EPS."

In fact it's that increase in EPS, that revalues the remaining stock upwards. In the example, I just gave, a doubling of EPS should theoretically double the value of the remaining shares in issue.

"Mine is the best description. You will only get increased eps on maintained or increased earnings. You will not get increased eps by reducing the share count by 6% with bank earnings falling by 15%.
No matter what the profitability, a shareholders percentage that they own will increase with reduced shares."

Which ever way you cut it, the overall effect of reducing the shares in issue is to increase the EPS. Lets imagine you have a company who buy back 50% of their stock, and cancel, assuming flat earnings the EPS will double. It's simple mathematics. Clearly the most direct effect of Buybacks is to increase EPS.

"The investment in Lloyds will have the effect of increasing the percentage ownership of shareholders retaining their shares."

Assuming they don't issue shed loads of shares, for benefits and schemes, the £2 Billion should reduce the shares in issue, therefore increasing the earnings per share. I wouldn't have used your description.

"I really don't think there is any news "over and above Ukraine""

That doesn't explain why BT's down 4.18%, when BP's only down 5.18% with the Rosneft news. BT seems to be getting punished more than other UK stocks, for no apparent reason. VOD is only down 1.98%, and Lloyds down 3.35%. You'd think BT would be amongst the least affected stocks in the world, by the war in Ukraine, yet BT getting undeservedly punished.

"Yeah I am little surprised about BP today
Was expecting a bit lower to be honest.... But good news to Investors, the market maker thinks it's not a big problem."

If I was invested in BP, I'd be getting out this morning. My guess is that the institutional investors will likely be unloading stock, while holding the price up as much as possible using algo's. I remeber Brexit, stocks initially fell off a cliff, finding a lower level where retail investors piled in, and then the stocks fell off another cliff days later, something similar could happen with BP. BP have taken a big hit from this, I can't imagine the current share price fall has fully priced in BP's loss.

"Today's buybacks will be adding more value When stock can be bought below a business's value it probably is its best use of cash"

In the current scenario, I have to agree. I would rather they'd paid more dividend, but it looks as though the decision to buyback has paid off on this occasion.

"btw HSBC investdirect do not show price of purchase/averages"

That's not very good, I'm with the Halifax and it automatically works out the average cost per share after top ups. I find it very easy to workout my profit and loss from their calculated figure.
I also use a spreadsheet to track my investments, and I've built my own dashboard tracking our investments in real time. I use waterfall charts for the real time tracking of our accounts, and a historical line chart automatically updating on the previous day's closing price. I built it for fun, but it's interesting to watch the ups and down's of the investments, not that you'd care lol.

"flec
btw - you care"

Why would I care what the status of your investments are? It's nonsensical saying your average is 20.84p anyway, your average is whatever the average cost per share is showing in your sharedealing account, and I can say with complete certainty that it isn't 20.84p.

"exactly, so he hasn't gone in full at all then."

Obviously he didn't see the resistance from the Ukraine armed forces. I would suggest an attempt to take over a country is a full scale invasion. As I implied, Russia could level Kyiv and Kharkiv and Ukraine would probably surrender, but there'd be no coming back from killing hundreds of thousands of civilians.

"Average share cost now 20.84p"

Nobody cares

"FULL SCALE??????? have u seen the real footage, hes hardly gone in, mostly its lone vehicles getting sent in with no support and russian soliders fleeing"

Well he's trying to take over the country, so I'd describe that as full scale. He could level Ukraine, but where would that leave him? Ukraine is viewed as a close cousin by many Russians; Putin would never be forgiven by his own people, if he destroyed Ukraine.

Just to add, in the modern World I don't understand why a country like Russia needs more territory, or why China is eyeing Taiwan. Russia already has a massive landmass, why does it need Ukraine? When it could direct its resources to developing the vast sparsely populated areas it already has.
England is clearly over populated, Russia isn't, so whereas we're full up Russia has the potential to increase population dramatically over the next hundreds of years. Russia has a population density of 9 per square Km, England has a population density of 434 per square Km.

"why everyone is over reacting, this war is not new news."

It surprised me. I never imagined Putin would launch a full scale invasion of Ukraine, because of the World changing consequences. I find his actions unbelievable, and it makes me wonder if he saw the consequential actions. By invading Ukraine, he's wound the Geo-political clock back 60 years.

As far as the UK is concerned, VOD would be in a good position to mop up ailing Altnets. Many of the Altnets could struggle, due to their lack of scale; VOD will be in a good position to mop these up, and integrate them into the ex C&WW Network they now own.

Is that Russian Rap?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l01wa2ChX64

Apparently Russia have been kicked out of the Eurovision song contest, they must be really feeling the pain now. Apparently Champaigne corks were heard popping all over the country when they were told.

"Do you think bonus shares are dished out on a daily basis.
Lloyds do not have a policy of buying and retaining shares in treasury - been through it so many times."

The current buyback will obviously exceed the shares issued under new block listings, so the current buyback is meaningful. A buyback intended to replace previously issued shares, is just maintaining the status quo, and therefore meaningless overall. You have your opinion of a true buyback, and I have mine, we'll just have to agree to disagree. The current buyback is a true buyback, in my opinion, previous one's weren't since they just removed the recently issued shares earmarked for various schemes.

"Share buy backs is a losing battle with LLOY, they just issue more for sharesave schemes. It is just like flogging a dead horse."

Admittedly I would normally see share buybacks as a good thing, but I find it hard to be enthusiastic in Lloyds case. This method of issuing new shares for bonus schemes, and buying back shares on the market makes no sense to me. To be fair 57,000,000 is small compared to the £2 Billion buyback, since they should be able to purchase around 3.9 Billion shares if the price remains around 50p.