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Jayne - thank you for your kind words. It looks like we will get trading updates on the Wednesday (after COP) or Thursday, that falls around 2-weeks after the Quarter ending. Really sharp for any company & an example of very good practice for others to aspire to.

Just what is needed to help reduce volatility in Dark. Solid, consistent, continued outperformance, satisfying the high level of expectation in the market. A great start to building a track record as a star-rated constituent of the FTSE 250, and stepping stone to the FTSE 100.

Jayne,

The Trading Update for the financial year ended 30th June 2021 was issued on the 15th July. So I would go with an update as early as this Thursday the 14th.

It is only a few months down the line from the IPO, and we know that nothing dreadful has happened news-wise, in fact exactly the opposite. So the update should be a stunner, consolidating the flow of great trading news.

There are some brilliant Israeli companies in this area. SentinelOne (falling significantly recently with many other US techs) is heavy on Israeli origins. Cloud-based Cyber security has resonance with Zscaler as well..

At some point the bigger companies that aspire to be a one-stop shop for cyber security total solutions to customers, will form strategic alliances or take over specialist companies in the sector. It is a very fast moving sector and I would guess these dynamics are not far away from sweeping in - in fact they are already in evidence.

I'm not sure that US debt default will actually happen in my lifetime, as the cavalry always seems to arrive just in time. It will however make the US markets jittery & unpredictable until at least December though, and the domino effect will hit us all to varying degrees. Especially Anglo-American companies.

US debt default is something that they simply can't let happen, so effectively they paper over the cracks, and the issues fester and worsen until a decision is reached to raise the debt ceiling, and pretend the problem does not exist for a bit longer!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58835517

Rather than making a decision, they have delayed a decision until December, which seems to be in vogue at the moment!

BW - completely agree. This whole process is completely predictable, in that there is going to be a really long period of uncertainty! Prospective dates of any sort of resolution are a million miles away.

The decision has been yes, no or delay further for some time now. Personally I think that as the series of delays extends, and extends, the likelihood of a positive outcome from ML's & Dark's perspective increases!

Where there's muck there's money!

A lot of sense BE the collapse of so many of the spring up from nowhere, no resources or expertise, teaser rates below product cost companies is just an indicator of the issues that lie ahead for the energy market. The fixed price underwriters must be getting a lot of sleepless nights ruminating over where the buck stops! It's almost an oily sub-prime scenario! Ultimately countries & their tax payers may end up footing the bill at the end of the line.

The great news is that is that the winners in this (besides Russia)will include RDS with high gas and oil prices, unless someone blinks a little late and we end up with recessionary impacts and a possible collapse in energy prices! Customers will learn not to "love" the 2-year fixed price contracts that they agree to around now with sky high prices, if normality returns to the markets at some point, and it will!

But, more optimistically we could live with the FT's upper level prediction for RDS:

https://markets.ft.com/data/equities/tearsheet/forecasts?s=RDSB:LSE

It's really impressive that you have achieved an average buying price that is actually lower than the lowest share price point over many years. You are obviously not an average investor!

Actual fees depend on stated charges per transaction, currency conversion rate, the spread that is applied, % fees on small trades, and also timing (not all transactions are made instantly - they are sometimes "bundled" together to make up a meaningful trade). The costs of buying and selling, I have to confess I pay scant regard to. If I am ahead, I am content with the transaction costs. If I am down it is invariably for reasons greater than the transaction costs. C'est la vie!

Exactly from the day of the results, which were excellent. At least they are heading in the right direction again. Bought a few Zscaler today.

All the Stateside Techs have been down big time recently. I think the Nasdaq particularly had been looking ahead, through the energy crisis etc, to acknowledgment that inflation was well and truly back in the system, and interest rates turning upwards to curb it. So all heavily borrowed companies get hit.

Charles - Agree, I've used Interactive Brokers as well and they are extremely good

Boyo - a great synopsis. Although we are close to party-time after a really dismal COVID 19 interlude, you are right in stating that a lot of cash will be leaving the mothership, creating a significant gap. Will the loss of the producing Permian assets windfall shrink the valuation/capitalisation of Shell? I certainly along with everyone else hope not.

However, just as Shell's assets were written down by $22 billion (also including Climate Change impacts) reported 2nd July 2020 by "Inside Climate News" & around this time oil futures went negative, those same oil and gas producing assets are urgently due for a reappraisal upwards. This is the only thing I would add to your appraisal. Even if the asset revaluation does not take the assets back to the previous valuations, I still feel that the book-value would be increased significantly. More than covering the prospective distributions, including a full distribution of the Permian assets value.

Second-guessing the share price, I have to say I have been as frustrated as everyone else at the slow progress for so many months, but I have felt increasingly that the share price has been a bit of a coiled spring that had to eventually react to the almost constant stream of good/great news. There will be storming results for the 3rd quarter. I would be amazed if we don't hit £18 by the 28th of October or certainly by ex-dividend day. From there we only need an increase of 11.11% (interesting for a month containing Remembrance Day) & we hit £20/share, which is getting very close on the horizon now.

Disturbingly, I think Putinomics is closely aligned with the interests of Shell shareholders. It looks like he intends to store gas in every rabbit-hole in Russia before he releases any to the West at extortionate prices. Control and disruption is the name of the game. Is it in Russia's best interests that the West goes green? OPEC has shown previously that they will restrict supplies and keep prices high even when economic activity in the West is impacted. Record gas prices & high oil prices will keep the Shell share price rising - it impacts inflation, which is already gathering momentum, but oil & gas will still power us out of the Panicdemic & I think high energy prices are here for a long time to come, in tandem with a healthy rising Shell share price which will go to new highs given time.

IG are superb so completely agree.

Both IG and HL are very consistent, its just that over a lengthy period of time HL are consistently dreadful!

Third Quarter update, & distribution announcement. If the SP is around this level or higher, ratio-wise I would bet good money on a 6c dividend increase, Special dividend and further extension of buybacks. The decks have also been cleared for a sizable strategic acquisition to be in prospect.

Buybacks are nothing new to company financial strategies, they have been around since 1981 in the UK and 1982 in the US. Prior to this it was illegal for a company to buy its own shares,for obvious reasons, and changes relating to allowing buybacks were originally introduced somewhat apprehensively. Forty-years is a long time for the financial wizards to work out whether buybacks work beneficially or not for companies.

Companies buy back shares because they believe the market has discounted its shares too steeply, to invest in itself, or to improve its financial ratios or a combination of these factors. Shell does not make its strategy clear on this, and there are sound reasons for this.

If Shell felt that the market had discounted its shares too steeply, it is difficult to argue that they were wrong. If Shell was not worth investing in why are they in business and why are we here as investors in Shell? Buybacks definitely improve the return on capital employed ratio ROCE, which the effects of the Panicdemic had played havoc with. The beneficial impacts of buybacks are not readily visible for shareholders, but in the background they are punching above their weight.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/opec-seen-keeping-oil-output-policy-unchanged-opec-sources-say-2021-10-04/

The backdrop to Nordstream 2 is Putin and Russia's aggressive territorial expansion strategy, coupled with control, subversion and disruption of the West's power supplies. Look up what happened in Moldova, Georgia & with the annexation of the Crimea. Ukraine is on the Kremlin's hit list & part of the onslaught is to take away Ukraine's income from gas transport. There are contributors on this site still seem to bizarrely think Russia is a benign committed European partner nation. Weird thinking!!!!

It certainly cuts the cost of customer acquisition dramatically! The big questions are whether they are "good" customers & how happy will they feel being moved on to different tariffs after maybe being on teaser tariffs!

The Government is simply deluded to think that these small energy companies can set up over night & suddenly increase competition. They often offer tariffs at below cost to get customers to switch provider. They put customers on fixed tariffs with no view or insufficient risk mitigation for energy prices maybe rising dramatically! And what happens with the cap - if it was set at £1200 pa & a consumer normally uses about that level of power, what stops them just turning everything on full whilst the cap lasts!

Something that has little visibility is the Government sweetener that will make this happen! Shell, Octopus etc will come out of this smelling of roses.