Member Info for fleccy

"The trouble is that BT doesn't know which direction it is going in either. It's been like this for years."

Do you actually read the BT's annual reports, and forward projections?

I'll summarise sum of the points:
25 Million FTTP passed by December 2026
PSTN switch off Dec 2025
2/3 building footprint reduction due to FTTP rollout
£2 Billion annual cost savings from 2025
EE 3G Switch off early 2023
Sell BT Sport

That's just the ones I can think of off the top of my head, they know seem to know where they're going.

"Honestly all the articles knocking BT about.... 1.40 is a joke they need stop messing around"

I wouldn't worry if you're a long term investor, the market's currently dysfunctional with crypto and certain stocks in fantasy land. At some point reality will return to the market, and stocks that own hard assets will come back into vogue.
BT is clearly undervalued on any metric, Irrespective of the negative articles the pension and debt is under control. Reading the articles, you'd think that BT was purely a broadband play, in reality its diversified Telecom offerings cover big business, mobile, infrastructure rental/wholesale, broadband, and backhaul/bandwidth. Because of BT's scale and size it will always be a safe bet, the articles try to convince investors that BT's a failing business, It's all just Smoke and Mirrors imo.

Mr Tang has his opinion, I have mine. BT's bottom line will be under pressure for the next few years, but that's because they're heavily investing in FTTP and 5G. As far as the pension deficit, time will tell, but it appears the deficit is currently reducing going off Otto Thoresen's recent statement, in the BTPS 2021 Annual Report and Accounts. The deficit isn't an issue anyway, as BT have already agreed a deficit reduction plan. The only reason, I can think of, why analysts like Mr Tang keep highlighting the deficit is to increase negative sentiment toward BT, possibly because they have a vested interest to do so. It's up to other's what they do, but I see the current price drops as an opportunity to top up.

"Not sure why OR would be worth £20 billion as all they are is a workforce in reality"

Openreach's value is based on the annual guaranteed revenue of £5.odd Billion from BT and external customers.

"The pension deficit seems to be never ending hangover a £1.6 billion increase per 0.7 inflation increase seems to depend on where you sit on inflation."

Me12345, where do you get the £1.6 Billion? If you used the FY20 figures:

"£5.4bn increase for 0.7% increase" (Liabilities)
"£4.2bn increase for 0.7% increase" Assets

Doesn't that come to £1.2 Billion per 0.7% increase? And they may have hedged even more since 2020.

Also BTPS recently reported that the deficit had recently reduced significantly anyway:

"An interim assessment was carried out as at 30 June 2021.
Whilst the full results of this assessment will not be available
until later in 2021, initial calculations suggest the estimated
Technical Provisions deficit has reduced over the Scheme
year from £8bn to around £4.6bn. The main reasons for
the reduction in the deficit are the deficit contributions
paid by BT (which include an Asset Backed Funding (ABF)
arrangement of £1.66bn) and a higher than assumed return
on the Scheme’s ‘growth’ (i.e. equity and equity-like) assets.
With this reduction in deficit, the agreed contingent
contributions should we fall behind plan and with the
increased resilience in the investment strategy, we believe
we have an enduring funding solution giving us greater
confidence that the Scheme’s objectives will be achieved"

https://www.btps.co.uk/MediaArchive/SchemeSite/BTPS352_BTPS_Report_and%20Accounts_August2021_V17_30Sept.pdf

"5G revenue to reach $31 trillion by 2030 – report"

"Of these consumer revenues, $3.7 trillion could go to communications service providers in the next nine years."

https://www.lightreading.com/5g/5g-revenue-to-reach-$31-trillion-by-2030---report/d/d-id/765502

"Forecasts and estimation of the number of IoT devices deployed globally continue to rise and rise again. Few industry analysts or researchers agree on what that number eventually might be but all accept that there will likely be upwards of 30 billion of them by 2030 and that, by that time, the market will be worth US$ 20 trillion or more."

"The 5G in IoT market will approach $272.4 billion globally by 2026 at 17.6% CAGR

5G and IoT enabled smart machines represent a $2.9 billion global opportunity by 2026"

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/08/04/2274479/28124/en/Insights-on-the-5G-in-IoT-Market-5G-and-IoT-Enabled-Smart-Machines-Represent-a-2-9-Billion-Global-Opportunity-by-2026.html

"Does anyone think that the recent press articles about Sky investing in VMO2 might just push BT along a bit with it's plans to sell off a bit of Openreach with Sky as a possible investor?"

I would see more chance of Sky investing in Openreach Fibre, than VMO2's, but Sky seem to be going in a different direction.
The recent fanfare around Sky Glass, and the fact that they've heavily invested in studios, implies they're moving toward a content and streaming type model; In view of that, I would guess that they'll still run an ISP, but would they be inclined to invest in Fibre? Would they need to?

All the indicators are Strong Sell currently. The RSI 7, 14, and 21 are all below 30, with the 7 trading day RSI currently at 11.1 and showing as highly oversold.
BT's price action is all the more baffling in the absence of any news.
The Telegraph article has been pumped by various other media outlets and used by the likes of UBS and HSBC to issue downgrades. The Telegraph article was basically old news regurgitated with no solid sources backing it up, and it isn't the first time that particular subject has been aired to knock the share price.
The only thing coming up next week, as far as I know, is the Consequential matters hearing in relation to the Patourel Class Action, but the share price didn't budge when the CAT decided to allow it to go to trial, so the market is effectively ignoring it anyway.
As far as Sky moving to VMO2, I would think it highly unlikely unless Comcast wanted to buy VMO2 from Liberty, but they may as well bid for BT as do that since the articles value VMO2 at over £30 Billion.
If anyone else has an idea as to why BT's share price has been rolling down a hill, I'd be happy to read it?
Personally I think the whole of the Telecom sector is being manipulated down, only to stage a miraculous recovery at some unknown point in the future, to become a must hold sector. As I stated recently, it's funny that banks like Goldman Sachs are investing in Altnets like CityFibre, when we're led to believe that Telecoms isn't worth investing in.

"The daft thing about all this is the fact that the daily volume is about ...say..20m shares"

Fun fact:
On the chart, BT share price performance appears to diverge from Vodafone around Mid February. Looking at the volumes, the 480.987772 Million share trade went through on Monday 7th June, but in the preceding period from Feb to June, the lowest Volume was on Friday 4th June with only 11.614527 Million shares traded.

"MP Sir David Amess - stabbed to death "

I've been watching it on the news, Condolences to his Family and Friends.

"That may be, but doesn't change the fact he owns 12.1% and I suspect a whole lot more waiting in the wings"

Drahi announced his 12.1% shareholding days after a 480 Million (4.8%) share purchase went through; He isn't naive, and is obviously plugged in since the remaining 7.3% he accumulated from who knows where?
Since he's also not stupid, and employing advisers who presumably know their stuff, I don't see Drahi as sweating on whatever paper loss he may currently be sitting on. As mentioned by various posters, previously, Deutsche Telekom are hinting that things are in the pipeline, and Drahi has been talking to various parties, so is obviously active in the background, therefore it's pretty obvious that something's going to happen in the near future.

"Another share price drop for LON: BTA.
Will it ever see 300p a share again?"

It isn't just BT, look at Vodafone sitting at 109.9p.

"Fleccy, do you think that the market is trying to make BT look more attractive to a predator by manipulating the share price down to ridiculous levels?"

Not a clue, anyone's guess. The likes of GS and Morgan Stanley probably know exactly what is going on, but we're left in the dark. The low pricing of Telecom stocks makes no sense to me, so I view it as an opportunity rather than a negative.
Bitcoin's trading around $60,000 this morning, imagine what it'll be like when that one goes pop lol.

"Will he already have options lined up to increase his holding further come December?"

Drahi's surprise announcement of purchasing over 12% of BT, without any previous hint in the press, suggests that anything's possible if you're a big enough player.

"why buy today when you can get them cheaper next week"

Indeed, I will be topping up again should the price drop as low as November last year. The price doesn't affect my confidence in the company, and should it start pushing toward £1 territory again, I will add lots more.

"Unlimited green energy would eliminate famine, and almost everything else imo"

I'll re-word that, what I should have said was:

Unlimited green energy would eliminate famine, and almost every other Global issue imo.

I don't think we want to eliminate everything else lol

Off topic, I know, but Fusion will solve most of the worlds problems. If vanity investments like, for example space tourism and space race projects, were diverted into Nuclear Fusion, we'd probably sort out out the problems on the ground in short order. Unlimited green energy would eliminate famine, and almost everything else imo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK7nQxBjWkY

"Just out of interest how much you down on LLOY?"

The break even on my Lloyds shares is just under 51p, and I'm currently down a midges over £5000.

Tim is this you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJd842n0dhQ

Just got in from the Gym and i'm surprised to see a drop off from 14:30, coinciding with the U.S. markets opening. BT is no longer listed in the US, what happened?