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"I would also guess that the high cost of the yearly maintaining of the systems and network does not fall much , just because revenue from users drops"
Poker, tell me what UK businesses would be affected? Because the UK economy is heavily weighted with service industries like Solicitors, Financial, Opticians, Dentists, etc and big institutional players; All of them also need to keep the lights on during a recession, as well as requiring connectivity. I see very little impact on BT's earnings in a recession, but we all have our own view as to what might happen in those circumstances. I worked in Telecoms in the 80's, 90's, 2008/9, and I seem to remember little impact on the workload during those periods.
"The market doesn't bet on opinions, like Retail does , it measures and hedges RISK and moves accordingly as RISK indicators change ...for better or for worse"
That just reaffirms my view to buy while stocks are cheap and hold as long as necessary. You can trade the market and see if you can beat the algo's and other traders, or bet long term and ride out negativity in stocks you perceive as safe and cheap. My stocks can go up, down, sideways, loop the loop and defy the ground, but It only becomes a capital gain or loss when I sell, in the meantime I've decided to add while I believe my target stocks are cheap.
"The sudden collapse of China would trigger a global slump."
Ok so that might impact BT's price negatively, but in a functional market money should pour into utility type stocks paying dividends. The market uses narratives to suit it's own goals, and doesn't appear to follow logic, as I said I'll make my own decisions and ignore the herd.
"The BT share price is like many other shares at present, a measure of the RISK related to the implications of the problems in China and the idea of achieving a "soft landing" or an economic stagflation recession"
Poker I agree that China is a worry at the moment, what I don't see is how that relates to BT. If BT was involved in resource, Commodities, Finance, shipping, or something actually affected by China, I could see why the market might be negative toward a stock like BT. BT provides Telecommunication services within the UK, and even if the UK fell into deep recession, people and businesses would still need connectivity. Unlike Altnets BT has an income stream that can finance its operations, so even if the UK did fall on its @r5e BT have the option of dropping the dividend, lowering Capex, and diverting cash into debt repayment and operations. Recession isn't an issue for for utility type stocks who provide essential services and I would include Telecoms in that basket, so in a functional market why would China impact BT? Of course the On Exchange markets are now dominated by algorithms, who's main role is to trade momentum, explaining why Blue chip stocks can now see big swings either way which wasn't always the case. Off Book trading is the biggest con of them all, allowing big players the opportunity to trade large holdings without moving the price.
"by his own admission, won't start to pay off for at least three years and probably seven years!"
That only applies if the market continues to ignore savings as BT's transformation progresses. As far as Lloyds and Vodafone are concerned, they're also dirt cheap and paying dividends. If you watch CNBC, the issue of UK stocks being cheap compared to the rest of the World is becoming more common, and regularly discussed on the channel.
All this enthusiasm, where's the update on progress bringing miners on board?
Seriously, anyone tell me what's new in these articles, apart from implying that they might sell the business? Even that statement is really vague and stating the obvious:
"This could include subscription, licensing, forming a joint venture, or outright purchasing the company and its associated technologies",
Really?
Being a cynical type, it looks more like pump than substance to me.
No doubt the pumping articles will give a short term boost to the price, but they're based purely on last month's interview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3fLmogyY_s
Aus just to add to my last post, and solve your character count mystery, you need to think a little out of the box. All I did was copy your post, click on the reply button, and paste your entry into the text box which told me how many characters were left available to type; Since the maximum number of characters is 3000, I then subtracted the number of characters left from 3000 telling me how many character you'd typed into your post, I then deleted your characters and typed in my own entry, easy peasy. You didn't think I'd actually sat there counting characters did you?
I'm sorry to disappoint you Aus but I wasn't a PABX Engineer, although I did get some PABX programming experience in the mid 1980's. As I'm sure I've told you before, I worked for 20 odd years as a Network Transmission & Customer Field Maintenance Engineer. I worked on everything from 64kb up to 565mb/s in the early PDH days, including X21 and Nx64 circuits, then 2.5gb/s systems in the transition from PDH to SDH, then SDH followed by DWDM systems; During that time I also worked on Microwave line of sight Radio systems, as well as Cisco routers, switches, Cisco Call manager, DSLAM's in BT Colo areas, Remote Concentrators, and things I can't even remember now. I moved out of Field Maintenance in 2009 and spent my last 10 years in Submarine Cable and Network Operations. I'd say I have a good level of experience in all aspects of Transmission and good amount of exposure to the Data side of things. Although I'd describe myself as a jack of all trades when it comes to Telecommunications, I've worked closely with people who are experts in their specialisation's, like Switch Engineers on voice, or CCIE's on the Cisco side of things. I can honestly say there isn't much I haven't worked on or had exposure to in Telecoms, as I believe I've mentioned previously.
"Can only assume you don’t know what a C7 stack is either?"
Since I'm from a Telecom background, from my point of view when someone mentions C7 my mind goes to Signaling system number 7 (C7/SS7). I wasn't a switch Engineer so I didn't directly deal with C7 protocol issues, but I did do protocol analysis on DASS 2 and Q931 when looking at problems between PABX's and Exchanges. I have come across faults that were proved to C7 interconnects between Exchanges, one that comes to mind was test calling from a customer site where the call had a massive delay causing lots of echo before eventually dropping out; Turns out it was a C7 issue on an interconnect between two Digital Exchanges, where the call/s were tromboning backwards and forwards between Exchanges and filling up all the channels on multiple 2 megabit circuits managed by one C7 link; I think it was about eight 2mb links managed by that C7 link, carrying 30 channels each, so the call's potentially trombone'd backward and forward 240 times; In reality more than one customer would have been directed toward the faulty interconnect, so from my customer's perspective it was an intermittent fault. I worked with the Switch Engineers to locate and diagnose the fault, which they fixed quite quickly. Is that the C7 you meant?
Aus your 10:28 post made me smile, you typed 1,114 characters and added nothing of substance.
No one's interested in your life story, sharing a generalised precis of your telecommunication's experience won't make you a target of Anonymous; I can only assume you have no experience in Telecoms and are more likely from a totally unrelated industry.
It's a bit like Premium Bonds, or winning the lottery, the miner was lucky that he hit a hash below the target. You'll increase your chances of winning the more hash power you've got, but you'll still get the occasional lucky punter who hits the magic number.
The Bitcon.com article is just referencing the July article on Proactive.com, so nothing new. Just another pump article.
https://news.bitcoin.com/uk-researchers-claim-new-tech-supercharges-bitcoin-mining-with-260-faster-hash-detection-slashes-energy-use/
https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1021620/quantum-blockchain-technologies-hard-at-work-after-filing-new-patent-application-1021620.html
Probably Vlad earning his Lunch.
"I’d hate for people to think he is a technical or strategic authority. I’ve tested the technical time and time again & honestly, it shouts out a very low level understanding"
I must be doing something right to attract such vitriol.
Aus, tell me where your experience comes from qualifying you to test my technical knowledge? Have you worked on DWDM, or any transmission technologies, or configured Routers and Switches, or worked on Terrestrial Line of sight Microwave Radio, or in any other Telecommunications role?
"These would range from competition, major share holders needing to bail out. Government & regulator changes & technological advances which could undermine BT’s huge investment"
To be honest you don't need a high level of technical knowledge, to understand that the fibre supporting Passive Optical Networks can provide enough upgradeable Bandwidth capacity needs for generations to come, or that technologies like LEO satellites have bandwidth limitations that'll always be inferior to Fibre. 5G is reaching the limit of terrestrial RF bandwidth capability, so tell me what Technology will appear that'll mean the Telecom companies will require yet more upgrade cycles requiring ever more Capex? Telecoms are now testing the technological limits of what's possible under our current understanding of physics, so apart from additions and minor equipment changes over time, where will "technological advances which could undermine BT’s huge investment" come from?
As far as competition and regulatory risks, that's always a possibility, but I don't really see OFCOM going much further since there's little more they can do. As I said previously, BT have had to deal with competition for decades, the current situation has a Deja vu feel to it.
I'll happily debate any of this with you Aus, maybe you can set me straight?
"I use the term accumulate."
Indeed, if I thought BT was a good price at £3 why wouldn't I add (accumulate) more stock at 112p? Which I consider to be cheap.
Here are the reasons I believe my investments in BT will pay off:
The Exchange closure program, reducing the number of exchanges from 5,600 to 1,000
https://www.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/products/the-all-ip-programme/exchange-exit-programme
Cost saving of £3 Billion annually by the end of FY25 "Strengthening our competitive position in challenging market conditions; cost savings target increased by
£500m to £3.0bn by end FY25"
https://www.bt.com/bt-plc/assets/documents/investors/financial-reporting-and-news/quarterly-results/fy23/h1/h1-fy23-slides.pdf
"Cost transformation on track with gross annualised cost savings of £2.1bn since April 2020 against our £3bn target, with a cost to achieve of £1.1bn against a target of £1.6bn"
https://www.bt.com/bt-plc/assets/documents/investors/financial-reporting-and-news/quarterly-results/fy23/q4/q4-fy23-release.pdf
It looks to me that Jansen is delivering on what he said he wants to achieve, so why shouldn't I believe they'll be a far more efficient business at the end of the transformation?
With the PSTN switch off, BT's electricity bill will drop dramatically due to no longer having to power 1000's of exchanges, with further savings as customers are migrated onto FTTP and FTTC cabinets are switched off and removed.
Then there are staff reductions.
"While outlining annual results, the company said it saw its "total labour resource" being reduced from 130,000 to between 75,000 and 90,000 by the end of the decade under a "rolling plan"."
https://news.sky.com/story/bt-aims-to-slash-workforce-by-up-to-55-000-before-2030-12883383
I suspect the job reductions will be more than that, but much will depend on SLA's built into their contracts.
I suppose it depends on whether, or not, you believe what BT have been saying; It looks to me as though they're exceeding their initial projections from 2020, so why wouldn't I trust they'll achieve all their goals?
I've explained why I believe BT is cheap, and seem to attract criticism even though I've made it clear why I believe BT will come good. I'd be interested to know what the "upcoming risk & the reasons for the low price" are?
It's Fleccy, not Fleecy Jackauss
Now we've cleared that up, it's clear your purpose for posting on this forum is to persuade people against investing in BT, my reply was perfectly reasonable in response to your post. Stop trying to deflect from the premise that BT might be a good investment at the current price, irrespective of averaging down, topping up, or anything else. My point is that BT is a good investment at the current price, if you think it's cheap and will go up from here.
Funnily enough, I've just updated a chart I made to highlight the inflationary effect on Capped and Uncapped Pensions. In the update I added the State Pension with Triple lock and inflation staying at 10% over 30 years. Here's the chart:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vR7BdUTF5R7o-pLglgSqc-Svezc1z6IL0fW6XeIU63DT6Rg03ov9cTp_8z4-Tu_F13Fk61yWdz5KxBn/pubchart?oid=1345147060&format=interactive
I'd argue that BT is a good hedge against inflation, because Telecoms are currently allowed to push through price increases of CPI+3.9%, so their profits should exceed the operational cost increases due to inflation. Gold is also considered an inflation hedge, but doesn't pay dividends and misses out on any compounding benefit. It's well know that equities are a hedge against inflation, so I don't understand why some on here imply that they aren't.
The reason I top up my dividend stocks, while the prices are low, has nothing to do with getting rich and everything to do with having other sources of income, as well as having an inflation hedge. Some of the arguments I've read recently imply that investing in dividend stocks aren't a hedge against inflation, I dispute that.
Aus, you've said "the losses are far greater than the BT share price & all of them far more likely to run out of control & won’t resolve themselves in time for a BT restructure"; Who is that aimed at, someone who bought at £5, £4, £3, £2, or yesterday? If someone believes BT will do well, then isn't averaging down just an added bonus to investing in a stock with a good yield and good prospects? Buying now at 112p is only a bad investment if you believe BT will go down hill from here, so your argument is flawed.
Many DB Pension schemes are capped at 5% per year inflationary increases; Many Public sector DB pension schemes are uncapped, as is the current State pension as long as the Triple Lock remains.
The current state pension is currently £203.85 per week, or £10,600 per year. My DB Pension is capped at 4.235%, so doesn't even hit the 5% cap. I recently made a chart comparing two DB pensions with both starting out at £18,000 a year, one uncapped and the other capped at 4.235%; I thought I'd add the State Pension, with the Triple Lock in place and inflation staying at 10% over 30 years. I did it to highlight what a rip off my pension is due to the cap, if inflation remains high, the same applies to DB pension schemes capped at 5%.
Here's the chart with the State Pension added and uncapped:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vR7BdUTF5R7o-pLglgSqc-Svezc1z6IL0fW6XeIU63DT6Rg03ov9cTp_8z4-Tu_F13Fk61yWdz5KxBn/pubchart?oid=1345147060&format=interactive
Amazingly if 10% inflation became the new normal, someone retiring this year with a starting salary of £18,000 per year, on a capped DB pension, would be overtaken by the state pension within 12 years, even though the State pension retiree started out with far less annual income. If you retire to somewhere like Canada or New Zealand, you wont get increases to your state pension so you're double whammed.
Clearly the Government and BOE need to urgently sort out inflation, or everything quickly falls apart.
Fusion I don't need a tin foil hat to know you're a windup merchant, and a useless one at that. If you've got nothing useful to add, other weak attempts at taking the p155, you should stop wasting your time; I wont be wasting any more time on you.