Member Info for getafgrip

It's not taken much to drive Shell's share price up: panicked queues around the block for their product, a gas price rapidly going of the charts, OP heading for $80 and higher, a sell-off of high cost of production assets, a significantly increased dividend payout, increased buy-backs, without doubt a Special Dividend, the 3rd Quarter closing with everything looking good, and over the hump of the Panicdemic.

But on the downside, it is all very bad news for the pessimists!

The 18% Loan Note for me indicates part of a "compensation" type package for ML to take a lower profile & dissociate himself from Dark. It is too high for there to be any commercial intentions with it & Dark owes its very existence to him. Cheap at the price for me, even if it was 50% or more.

Great to see queues at petrol stations, hopefully it will remind people of the odd advantages of an easily dispensed and extremely portable fuel supply. Certainly the queues would be even longer if they were EV's waiting to get their daily fix, in the midst of amateurish supply issues.

Seriously though, in the future when oil supply out-runs demand (only a very short time ago) & the oil super-majors are looking at leasing the last supertanker on the block to store the surplus. All they need to do is refine as much as they can and spread the rumour that there are supply issues with retailers, then the public will fill their tanks up completely unnecessarily, and with no additional storage cost to the likes of Shell and BP etc the problem is mitigated or resolved completely.

For those in cyberspace there is a straightforward binary answer to the ML extradition saga - simply yes or no! But introduce Government decision-making like a virus in the system and suddenly there is a third decision choice: don't make a decision. They don't know what Antigena is or does, but they need it!

It's a good summary, but I don't want to disappoint you by agreeing with everything you have said. I don't think share buy-backs shrink a company. All they do is reduce the number of shares in issue, with the remainder generally being worth more in tandem with this. Also as a legalised share price support mechanism, with a bank using strategically placed purchases, the positives can as intended be disproportionately positive to the funds deployed.

It is really down to which company has the highest capitalisation value:: a company with one share in issue with an SP of £1m or a company with a million shares in issue with an SP of £1 each. If the company buys back it's one share worth £1m, is it then suddenly worth less than £1m?

Thanks btw.

Harry Dunn was the settlement of a Civil case.

Agreed though these cases are disproportionate to the impact that they have on national sentiment and even the economy. There is a major incentive for all concerned to get them settled.

It is far better that Mike Lynch wakes up worrying about cyber-security rather than having concerns about which way his cell faces!

NSS has consistently highlighted the extraordinary increase in gas prices. Over a relatively short space of time, and when it is "out of the blue" company boards will often treat this type of windfall gain as an opportunity to declare a special dividend, so that all shareholders benefit. I was convinced that a special dividend was more and more likely to be in the offing, then for me this has been confirmed by the Permian sales.

It's a good highlight GF. With the breakneck speed of increasing the customer base there is bound to be some creaking at the seams for Darktrace, or any organisation in the world in a similar position For me the key is going to be attraction and retention of the very best cyber security expertise in the world consistently. At both management and staff level. After all they are the ones providing the first point of contact at Darktrace after identifying a problem & the back-up expertise & advice on an ongoing basis. There is intense competition for these experts & the price will go up - so another metric to watch.

SentinelOne recently opened a development office in the Czech Republic with the primary aim of attracting, nurturing and developing another vein of this type of talent. For now I would put the increase in customer dissatisfaction down to growing pains for now, but it is definitely one of the metrics to watch.

C - I have bought and sold a number of RDSB shares over the last 18-months. I originally stated that I "Never held Shell shares prior to last 18-months." It is simply a statement of fact.

I only bought Shell shares 18-months ago because they were so low, dividend cut by 2/3rds etc. My view then was that Shell would never go below £9 again & I sold my holding with no intention of buying again in the future. Then they went below £9 last October & I have kept those and the shares I have bought since without trading them at all.

They are a long way ahead in a completely tax-free environment & Shell are the most easily predictable share I have ever bought in this volume. Once Panicdemic is behind us what companies were going to be the main beneficiaries!

How would you like to hear about Darktrace, bought at £3.30p and hit £9 today - more blx!

Drop a line to the company secretary, explain that you don't own the shares directly but through a nominee,
& they will invariably arrange it for you.

It is shocking that people are critical of something that they are clueless about. A stocks and shares self-select ISA enables you to put in £20k every year & it cumulates: or should I say adds up, which a number of you cannot!!!

Dmors & Casapinos
I bought 6000 RDSB shares on the 27th October 2020. If either of you manage to focus your single brain cell, you might with input from friends, be able to work out how feasible this is with ISA funds.

No concern whatsoever. I personally find it really interesting to know what a cross-section of investors in an income stock like Shell are doing there. I can understand people being reluctant to discuss their shareholding etc, but its information relating to one share only & for me its harmless idle curiosity. I don't think its an ego trip necessarily, just a direct question & answers relating to a share we are all interested in with figures that could change a few minutes later. Nobody is listing their assets, which might be ego trip material & they have no obligation to even provide an answer.

£9. Yihaaaa!!!!!

With all this cash flooding around, why doesn't Shell put investors out of their misery by just issuing a 10p voucher per share sold to every RSDB seller? Then at least we will leave the £15 price jinx behind us. Otherwise this SP ceiling looks like lasting forever.

The answer to this phase of the ML question is on Priti's desk & I don't think it would be totally out of character for her to make an aggressive, unpopular decision. But with Bozo in the States anything could be rationalised or overturned quite sensibly/irrationally!

I always discount what political input impacts on shares, because it is often out of the blue, illogical & shareholders are helpless as they can do nothing about it.

There are some classics such as Claire Short suddenly announcing in opposition that as soon as Labour were in power they would re-nationalise the railways - a real Exocet for Railtrack shareholders at the time. Or, continuing on a rail theme, the recent announcement that the Government was going to get involved in selling rail tickets did wonders for the Trainline share price!

Think of the encouragement by governments to buy diesel cars - diesel-gate. Now lets go electric - the fact that to produce one tonne of a particular rare earth metal, essential to greening our environment, involves processing 1200 tonnes of rock using lakes of water - sounds sensible. The list is endless though.

Unless Priti's decision enables ML to work directly with Dark again, or at least continue his stellar career in the UK, we probably won't agree with it.

Never held Shell shares prior to last 18-months. Bought 6000 @£8.66p October 2020, in an ISA & have made 2 x further purchases. Total value in ISA well into 6-figures. Bought for capital gain only but being seduced by the dividend.

Completely agree - RDS is a bit of a coiled spring. I cannot personally see how an investment at this level would not pay off big time between now and the results, there is a gathering storm of great news that will boost the shares.

A stockbroker who had a repertoire of favourite cliches used to say to me "Every dog has its day!"

I think L is right. A single definitive version of the facts would be a really good idea, as there have been a lot of variations on this theme. And there has been some significant elasticity in interpretation within the supposedly defined parameters.

I knew you would.