Member Info for fleccy

PRK, I think you underestimate BT's cost cutting potential. FTTP is Passive Optical Network, so the light leaves the exchange without any requirement for on street power, or cabinets, except in a few exceptional cases. BT are closing thousands of exchanges, and switching off PSTN plus associated legacy network. The remaining fully converged network will require less staff, less buildings and also save big on the electricity bill. BT also own all the infrastructure used by the majority of the Altnets (PIA) and the ISP's who use BT to supply a wholesale service.

"Stick with BT"

Why not hold both BT and Vodafone? I do. They've both been undervalued for years and are finally on the rise. Your constant berating of BT smacks of sour grapes. What happened, did you bail out of BT before the price started climbing and move the investment into Vodafone?

"the ledger IS the currency. Meaning that the way the blockchain records transactions, robustly and securely. in a decentralised way, is the currency"

It's too volatile to work as a currency. It can only be used at a limited number of outlets and most transaction's for goods involves a conversion to Fiat at the conversion rate. You can use it to transfer money abroad, but not without the risk of Fraud and facing charges if you use one of the registered service providers. If you transfer large funds directly using crypto, you may fall foul of money laundering laws and possibly contravening other laws.

"bitcoin cannot be reduced in value by governments printing more money. With no much 'Quantitative easing' going on, bitcoin is seen as a store of value, shielded from this"

It's only worth the price that the last trade went through and potentially the Bitcoin Whales and exchanges could control the price due to the extent of their of their holdings. It isn't backed by anything tangible, so it's essentially worthless.

"bitcoin cannot be seized by authorities as easily as money in a bank account. This makes it seen as more secure against government raids"

Not true, lots of criminals have given up their Bitcoin to reduce prison sentences. There are cases where people have been held hostage to give up their keys, suggesting it's easier to steal Bitcoin than money in the bank if you're targeted by violent criminals, or you're hacked.

"the bitcoin blockchain decentralises the transactions and flow of money, and is seen as a powerful democracising force, and an alternative to the control of central banks"

Only by the fanboys, the majority of people have no interest in Bitcoin, or Crypto in general. I'd argue that Bitcoin is no more democratic than Fiat, since it's as much at risk from the herd moving out as a bank is during a bank run.

How can something unbacked, intangible and tied to nothing be worth anything. The value of Bitcoin is based on nothing but speculation and faith, it's more akin to a cult than an asset.

Nothing like Gold. The reason Gold was originally used as currency, in clothing, Jewelry, etc is due to its properties as an inert metal. Now Gold has a vast number of uses in industry, medicine, electronics, even space technologies, etc as well as still being used in coins and jewelry. Bitcoin doesn't have any properties, as it's just a piece of code and it isn't even unique since anyone with the relevant coding skills can generate their own crypto currency.

Bitcoin is definitely nothing. A computer generated token that bears more resemblance to a gambling chip than a solid investment. It only has use within the BTC casino where punters buy, hold and sell, defining it as a commodity is laughable. It could go much higher in the medium term, but like anything else that's useless it will eventually find its true value, probably close to zero.

"I currently have a few thousand more shares in Bt than yourself bur I am still currently £49k down as a paper loss. In addition, I am £31k down with Vodafone as a paper loss but receiving dividends from both of course"

I find it more stressful when our stocks show large gains, because then we have to decide whether to hold, or sell and look for other value stocks. A combination of the recent Motor Finance Fiasco, and our Lloyds holdings showing large gains drove our decision to sell a portion of our Lloyds holdings and buy BP; But it wasn't without considerable thought and agonising about the decision, even though it seemed like a no brainer to realise some of the Lloyds gain and invest elsewhere.

"You’re right again lil rod, I shouldn’t get drawn in to Fleccy’s bragging"

I can't help myself, but it makes my point. You formulate an investment strategy and stick to it. By selling those Lloyds shares and buying BP, our dividend income has increased by a couple of thousand. At one point, over the last five years, across all our holdings we were showing a paper loss of around £178,000 and we continued topping up at low prices, currently we're showing a paper gain of nearly £80,000. Paper gains and losses are meaningless until you realise them, for that reason it's the dividend income we focus on as it gives you choices. BP's a recent addition to our holdings, due to the low price and high dividend yield, we initially bought £20,000 worth when the price was around £3.68 and then topped up that holding by selling a portion of our Lloyds stock earlier in the week.

The trick is to pick relatively safe blue chip stocks paying dividends and reinvest the dividends when the stock price falls, the lower the better if you have faith in your investment judgement. We're still sitting on a paper loss against our Vodafone holdings, but I'm confident that'll come good in the future too and that paper loss is far outweighed by the paper gains on our other holdings.

I'm not a big believer in investing for pure growth, growth stocks tend to more risky and don't pay dividends, so you possibly have to wait years for a return on your investment; And not all growth stocks are successful, you could potentially completely lose your investment. You can see a form of growth in dividend paying value stocks, because you can reinvest the dividends while the price is low and compound that dividend reinvestment while the price remains low; When BT was around £1 you could buy nearly twice as many shares as you can at the current price, like I say it's about having faith in your investment choices.

"So logically these addresses already signed up to altnets are not going to be jumping to openreach, which changes the financial model in a big way"

Maybe, maybe not if BT come out fighting on pricing. OFCOM have to approve any pricing changes by Openreach, but once the competition reaches a critical mass OFCOM will have little choice but to release the regulatory chains holding BT down. With One Touch Switching it'll be easy to move either way, people will go where they get the best deal and service. The Altnets are loaded with debt and relying on new customers to service that debt, BT may have debt but it also has other sources of income on top of FTTP.

I don't disagree that there's some risk attached to BT, but isn't that true of any investment? I'm pretty sure BT will execute on their plans and do ok, in the meantime we're getting paid good dividends to wait.

A more pressing matter is the pace Openreach gets to the 25 million premises passed point, in my opinion. Apparently most of the losses are in areas where Openreach haven't, as yet, reached with their FTTP rollout, so the sooner they complete the rollout the better. Here's the thing BT will still be the incumbent once the rollout's are completed, since they own the infrastructure Altnets use to to reach their customers through products like PIA and others. The Altnets are constantly on OFCOM's back to make changes to the rental pricing model, a good example is the recent publicity due to the Fibrus CEO moaning about per-meter pricing for rural areas. Unlike the Altnets BT is a listed stock with retail shareholders, the Altnets are funded by big finance, why should these financiers be given a leg up by holding down retail shareholders? OFCOM should tell them to do one.

Aus if I felt as you do I'd sell up immediately, why do you hang onto your BT shares if you think they'll be severely damaged by the competition? We reduced our holdings in Lloyds by 97,000 shares the other day, to de-risk against the Motor Finance Supreme Court outcome, we bought more BP with the proceeds. We still hold over 200,000 Lloyds shares so there's still some risk, but you hold BT even though you're so negative about the stock, why?

"I mean, it’s not difficult work out the risks of this strategy is it?"

There are risks with any investment, we decide where to put our money based on our own ideas around strategy and competition. You weigh the odds and decide whether to invest, top up, or sell, we all have our own view as to what might happen. Personally I don't see the point in worrying about what the Altnets may or may not do, I'm going with the idea that BT will massively cut costs and grow the bottom line. Like Jansen once said, when he was in charge, BT have options to react if the competition gets too intense. I'd suggest BT has more leverage to lower prices, should they wish to, but they're currently allowing the competition to get a toe in the door, possibly to keep OFCOM off their back.

To be honest I have no interest in the next set of results, they'll obviously follow the trend from the last couple of years, and won't change my view that BT is a cost cutting play and not a revenue growth play. When we significantly increased our BT holding's, in March, adding an extra 69,650 BT shares we weren't concerned about Altnet competition. If we thought Altnets we're a threat to BT, we wouldn't hang on to our current 141,888 BT shares, especially since we're currently sitting on a substantial paper gain. I don't disagree with your content about customer losses, in this thread, it's just that you don't present a balanced view with the majority of your posts being negative toward BT.

From our previous exchanges, I've always viewed you a Virgin Media fanboy, because you've talked them up a lot. Incidentally, my son has just switched from VMO2 to BRSK; I jokingly accused him of being a traitor for not going with BT or Plusnet, but he pointed out that Openreach hadn't yet fibred out his area; In my opinion, the Altnets are a far bigger threat to VMO2 than BT.

"Have I reported anything inaccurately ?"

I have no idea without checking, but I'm sure you're correct since you'll have researched it before posting, it was just a question, no need to get emotional and suggesting I'm pathetic.

As far as BT/Openreach losing customers to Altnets, it's inevitable and I've said as much for years. The investment case for BT, in my opinion, is growth of the bottom line Net Profit through cost cutting. The cost cutting comes from ending PSTN and legacy network, building closures, moving to a fully converged network and requiring a fraction of the current staff. Even BT's electricity usage will eventually be a fraction of the current requirement, so they'll make big savings on their electricity bill too.

Aus, for someone who's supposedly a BT investor you work really hard to persuade people BT's a bad investment, why is that?

On the 18th Feb BT share price was around 147p and he issued his downgrade cutting the target from £2 to

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/02/18/bt-faces-setback-as-customers-defect-to-cheaper-rivals/

"Citi’s intervention wiped as much as 6.5pc off BT shares on Tuesday before they finished the day 2.7pc down, wiping £429m off the company’s market valuation. Mr Murdock-Smith said the shares should be worth 112p, a further 24pc lower than their price on Tuesday"

Since he released his downgrade from £2 to 112p, BT has slowly risen to within touching distance of £2, if he'd left Citi's original rating he'd have been right; If that isn't an epic failure I don't know what is. With his form we should be around £2.50 by the end of the year, keep up the good work Carl.

"Opens up 7p on news, and closes flat. (nearly)" Friday S.O.P.

Carl Murdock-Smith used to work for BT, for 2 years 🤡

"Group Investor Relations Director

Group Investor Relations Director

BT

Jul 2015 - Jun 2017 · 2 yrsJul 2015 to Jun 2017 · 2 yrs

Led the team responsible for BT’s relationships and communications with capital markets"

He's likely been quietly tipped off by someone in BT who's in the know, or he's just listened to BT reporting CAPEX reductions going forward. Since BT pays Openreach to lay Fibre and BT have stated that they'll be reducing CAPEX as the FTTP rollout nears completion, doesn't it stand to reason that Openreach's revenue will decline? Or am I wrong in thinking that?

"Yes, allocate a percent to Bitcoin"

Bitcoin doesn't do anything, it's just a gambling chip where punters bet on the price going higher. Why would I invest in something that has no useful purpose, where the price is driven by the next article or tweet? I have no idea how high Bitcoin may go, but I'm quite sure it'll eventually be worthless.

You're assuming QBT will be able to market any of their methods, personally I have serious doubts they will. The PRN's have always suggested jam tomorrow, with the narrative suggesting a product is just around the corner, but that's been the case for the last 4 or so years.