Member Info for fleccy

"EE handed another £1.85bn as UK gov preps for ESN upgrade to 5G. Home Office set to award BT/EE a massive seven-year contract to complete Emergency Services Network transition. Contract won without competition as EE's work up to now makes it the only viable option"

https://www.telcotitans.com/btwatch/ee-handed-another-185bn-as-uk-gov-preps-for-esn-upgrade-to-5g/8326.article#

Aus, I did say I don't rely on my pension income alone. There are a lot of people who didn't make further provisions for retirement, who are now struggling.

Only if you have other earnings Mole, a non earner can receive £12,570 tax free allowance and a further £500 dividend allowance on top of that, so £13,070 in total dividends. If you earn interest on savings you on top of dividends, you wont pay tax until you earn a further £4,430 in savings interest above £13,070

"Not really. HMRC are after a definitive point it stops moving"

Beo I just adjust my mindset to fit the system. We're making tax free money from dividends while we hold, and if we sell then capital gains or losses are the measurement's I focus on. I could look at other stocks that have outperformed and think what if, but what benefit is there in worrying about unknowns? I believe my way of thinking is sensible, by weighing dividend income and capital gains/losses separately, and working as best we can within the UK tax system.

Between me and my wife we're looking at pulling in more than £25,000 in tax free dividends during the current tax year, how do you equate that if you assess paper gains, losses and maybe's? As far as Capital is concerned, the only two events that really matter are when you buy and when you sell, everything else is noise and irrelevant.

"Fleccy there's plenty of room in the UK to double or treble the entire population! Many offices and retail areas can be near to completely bulldozed to make way for new homes as the high street and many offices are completely redundant!"

Where are all the new jobs coming from, will they build a hospital on every street corner, where will the new reservoir's be, how will transport accommodate nearly 200 million people when roads are already congested? If you triple the population, then you have to increase associated infrastructure by more than triple, since services are already strained. As a country we're already having to import most of our food, if the country went bust and import prices went through the roof, how long before social cohesion breaks down completely? My personal view is that a country should always be self sufficient, just incase the country, or the World, turns to 5h1t.

If that's true Kev then you should immediately fill out your online self assessment tax form, for all this money you're making on your paper gains from unsold shares; Wait a minute, the HMRC only tax gains when you sell stock, looks as though they agree with me.

Beo half the Lloyds shares are in my wife's standard share dealing account, the plan is to use the Lloyds gain in that account to offset against losses on selling another share, also in the same account, at the same time. We're hoping for Lloyds to hit around 65p before making the changes, which include releasing £40,000 in the share dealing account to move out and top up our ISA's. Because my wife's a non earner and I only hold shares in an ISA, all our dividend income is currently tax free, but she's close to the £12,570 limit in that account and would have gone over that, and including the dividend allowance, this year if Vodafone weren't cutting their dividend. Hopefully Lloyds will eventually reach 65p, we're digging in and waiting.

If you see sitting on a paper loss as a real loss Daniel, that's up to you, personally I don't see it that way.

Lloyds is my largest holding, on the 31st Oct 2023 I was showing a paper loss of more than £40,000 on Lloyds alone; Right now, on ex dividend day with the associated drop, I'm showing a paper gain of £42,000 on Lloyds. When my Lloyds shares were showing a loss of £40,000 last October was I losing money? Now that my Lloyds shares are up £42,000 have I made money without selling? In my opinion my Lloyds profit is illusory until I make real and realise a capital gain, anything else is just noise.

Daniel I'm heavily invested in both BT and Vodafone, but I like to think I give an unbiased opinion in relation to both companies. I can see BT's path more clearly than Vodafone's, but Vodafone is a far more complicated beast. As far as the Vodafone/Three merger, I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said in various articles over the past months. It stands to reason that a merger between the third and fourth largest MNO's wouldn't normally be passed by the CMA; The CMA will no doubt discuss options with OFCOM in order to set conditions in the event they do decide to approve the merger, saying that doesn't show any preference either way for either company.

A paper loss is unrealised, it only becomes a capital loss when the shares are sold, the same applies in relation to a paper gain which only becomes a capital gain when you sell. If you buy a stock and it triples in value and you don't sell, but it then loses 3/4 of that value and you continue to hold, you've lost nothing because you still own the shares, it only becomes real when you sell. The argument that you're losing money because you could have invested it elsewhere is false, because any chosen alternative investment may also have underperformed, possibly catastrophically. The reason I invest in dividend paying shares is because I get something back while holding, I then have the choice to reinvest those dividends and average down if I perceive my chosen stocks to be undervalued. I might be sitting on a paper loss with my Vodafone holdings, but I haven't made a capital loss because I haven't sold any and although the dividends have been reduced twice, I'm still getting a return.

A reduction of 183,645,303 shares for July

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vS0oSavIsBjHgD7k6NMyk7Z591Cm2IrevvLI-Jq95gOmESrOI0Vi_NhA8LIO9rMz90Y5zCOCoFuEItG/pubchart?oid=1812824850&format=interactive

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vS0oSavIsBjHgD7k6NMyk7Z591Cm2IrevvLI-Jq95gOmESrOI0Vi_NhA8LIO9rMz90Y5zCOCoFuEItG/pubchart?oid=1451011517&format=interactive

Under normal conditions I would definitely expect the CMA to reject the Vodafone UK/Three merger. The merger would significantly change the MNO landscape and affect Joint ventures between Three and BT, as well as affecting other mast sharing agreements between VMO2 and Vodafone. If the CMA approve the deal I expect OFCOM will force big spectrum concessions in favour of BT/EE on the back of the merger, since VMO2 have apparently already reached a post merger agreement.

Not really PAS, I'm just an interested bystander. I've also been known to witness the occasional car crash as it's happened, and continued to watch the aftermath.

Not really, because I have no intention of putting money into QBT. The trading's that thin that anyone with a significant holding could really struggle to sell, for example the daily trading volume is well below Obelix's claimed holding, and the quantity of daily trades are also extremely low. Even if I decided to take a chance, I'd risk being locked in because of the lack of trades. I used to say that post's on these board's couldn't affect a stock's price direction, but in QBT's case I'm not so sure.

"not a single mention of the CMA who actually make the decision which won't be for months"

Actually Narcus I did mention the CMA the other day, the "Never" starting the post was aimed at an OFGEM reference in the previous post.

"fleccy

Posts: 12,150

Price: 73.46

No Opinion

RE: Outcome of merger plan29 Jul 2024 13:18

Never, the CMA however may have something to say around September/October time, and OFCOM will likely have input too with reference to Spectrum allocation should the CMA allow the merger."

"but the impression I got was that the patience that long term investors have shown will be very well rewarded in the next few weeks"

I'll believe that when I see it.

What happened in Southport was horrendous, to target young children is pure evil. The 17 year old who committed this atrocity probably wanted to make a statement through his choice of target, what's his grievance and why inflict so much pain on everyone? You can't ignore the fact he's a second generation Migrant, even though his family appeared to integrate, obviously something went badly wrong.

Salman Abedi is another example of someone who committed an atrocity targeting children, albeit for different reasons, but both Abedi and this lad of Rwandan descent are young people of migrant ancestry; What clear is that both may have had different reasons for committing their atrocities, but both must share a hatred for British society. The Dunblane massacre wasn't migrant related, Thomas Hamilton's target was the local community. Something's going badly wrong in British society, the politicians are simply choosing to sweep the grievances under the rug, but they're growing as time goes on. If communities isolate themselves and import their cousins to marry, instead of spreading out into the wider community, it's promotes tribalism everywhere else; I would suggest multiculturism only works if the cultures integrate with each other, that doesn't appear to be happening in the UK.

Savage England doesn't need more housing, it needs less people. England is already overcrowded, unlike countries like the US and France where more land is available to service population increases. My wife like's watching US documentaries and has commented more than once about the size of US houses, their roads, and the amount of parking available at their Mall's. UK houses have become metaphorical shoe boxes, the roads are congested, and the services are approaching third world, it's probably easier to see a Doctor in Gaza than it is some parts of the UK. The councils are cash strapped with some bin collection's once a month and the roads are full of pothole's, and they want to build more houses? They can't even afford to service the current population, new houses need more doctors surgeries, more bin collection's, more congestion, and if they build on green belt less food self sufficiency. It feels like the politicians are on a mission to destroy this country; The politicians answer to everything is grow the population and increase GDP via the back door, meanwhile the World is moving toward automation and AI with far fewer jobs, if there's a long term plan I don't see it; What I do see are a string of Prime Ministers and subordinates who love to prance around on the World stage to elevate their own Global profile's.

Well BluePete when a Labour Chancellor kicks you in your financial nuts, and you feel the pain for the rest of your life, you're probably justified in disliking the party they're associated with. I don't think I'm alone in being affected by Gordon Brown's stealth tax, many don't even know they're affected. Apparently he was warned about the possible effect his raid on pensions would have and I might be poorer for Gordon Brown's raid, but many younger people stuck in inferior Defined Contribution schemes don't even know they're affected. Of course Defined Benefit schemes were also big investors in UK stocks, but as they closed to new members they had to move to Bonds in preference to stocks. It's possible that Gordon Brown's barely noticed tax raid is also a contributing factor in the UK's underperforming Stock Market; As I said, The Law of Unintended Consequences.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/pensions/gordon-brown-ruined-retirement-generation/#:~:text=Before%201997%2C%20a%20pension%20fund,scrapping%20their%20defined%20benefit%20schemes.

BluePete I did consider reporting the thread and getting it deleted, but my hatred of Labour took control of my hands and typed the post instead.

I'm not bothered about my state pension, that's well covered, I was talking about the damage done to my Defined Benefit pension scheme. I 've got over 5 years before I'm eligible for a state pension, it might not even exist by then lol.