Member Info for giantsquid

Https://www.fool.co.uk/2024/01/24/at-43p-is-the-lloyds-share-price-an-unmissable-bargain-or-uks-biggest-value-trap/

Another Trump presidency will be good for UK shares - he's more supportive of the UK than Biden & he's much better with the US economy, all of which rubs off on the FTSE. As we saw during his last term, he's also a peacemaker who is vowing to end the Ukraine war as a high priority. If he achieves that, expect a massive stock market rally. The world needs Trump back in power - he's way ahead of Biden in the polls and now that DeSantis has dropped out, Trump is now almost certain to win the nomination, putting him another step closer to the Whitehouse.

Companies would be better not paying dividends and reinvesting the cash instead, buying back shares or paying off debt. Use the cash to create shareholder value. I'm sure i read somewhere Charlie Munger shared the same view, suggesting companies only pay dividends because they don't know what to do with the cash. You could argue it's rewarding shareholders, but it's a huge amount of cash leaving the business that could and should have been put to use. Many of those shareholders won't reinvest in the companies shares so it's cash that quite literally leaves the business and does nothing for the company whatsoever.

ITV wanted to get Nigel Farage on I'm a celebrity just so they could trash him and make him look bad. Not only has their ploy backfired as Nigel's popularity continues to soar, it's also costing them £1.5m! Did ITV learn nothing from the NatWest f*ck up?

Hexam, the ad is most definitely an attack on Christmas, an attack on traditional Christian values and celebrations. You're invested here and are simply trying to defend the indefensible because you're up to your neck and petrified of the potential fall out and huge drop in share price post Christmas when the full scale of the boycott becomes apparent.

This tweet perfectly sums up the mood of thousands of extremely angry people :

'@marksandspencer, while your ad aims to celebrate the diversity of how people spend their holidays, it misses the mark on respecting the essence of Christmas. This isn't just any holiday; it's a Christian festival commemorating the birth of Christ. Your ad's tone, which some have described as 'outright nihilistic,' dilutes the significance of a religious and cultural cornerstone for many.

If the intent is to challenge traditional norms or poke fun, perhaps consider doing so with a less sacred occasion. How about applying the same creative liberties to Diwali or Eid? Let's see how that goes down'

Another twitter user summing the general mood up nicely "Smashing up loved and cherished Christmas decorations, burning tradition and ruining other people’s fun makes you happy, M&S? Wow.

You do you. I’ll go somewhere else"

They urgently need to apologize and pull this ad, it's going to have a very damaging effect on sales. Thousands are threatening to boycott them over this.

The company has apologised and edited out the part where red, green and silver paper was thrown on the fire - because it upset the pro-palestinian crowd. But the rest of the ad which trashes Christmas is being kept. One twitter user summed this up perfectly by saying "Just in case anyone was in any doubt @marksandspencer

would like to clarify that they only intended to insult British people" - couldn't put it better myself.

From a commercial point of view, running an ad trashing Christmas, whacking elves and burning Christmas cards AT WHAT IS A KEY PERIOD IN THE CALENDAR for Marks and Spencer, is a terrible lack of judgement on their behalf.

On the one hand they're attacking Christmas festivities and offending millions of Christians, whilst at the same time they're asking us to go to their stores and spend loads of money celebrating it - whoever is responsible should be fired out the door. As another poster correctly said earlier, this is comparable to the Bud light gaffe, and it's going to cost this company dearly.

No it is NOT "just a bit of fun" if they ran an ad attacking Ramadan festivities there would be thousands in the streets, you know damn well there would be. And would you be saying to them to lighten up it's just a bit of fun? Can you imagine their reaction to that? You're financially invested here and a get the need to trivialise this any way you can but there's certain to be thousands boycotting M&S over this. You only have to read the fallout on twitter to see that. I don't know what the hell this company was thinking but they've made a huge mistake.

For those who haven't seen their anti-christian, anti-christmas advert, go to M&S twitter and click on it - it is truly appalling. Christmas elves being whacked, Christmas cards being burnt.. it is an attack on Christmas itself and all because some of our minorities hate our culture and traditions and don't celebrate it. Thousands have taken to twitter to condemn it. I suspect it's going to hurt sales a lot. Shareholders, in my opinion, should demand the advert be withdrawn.

Https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1031378/asos-reported-sale-of-top-shop-raises-concerns-about-viability-1031378.html

I barely look at shares these days, sold out of my last holding about a year ago. There's so much doom and gloom going on in the world I just don't see the point of investing in anything at the moment. The Israel/Gaza conflict could easily escalate to include iran and there's no saying if NATO may end up in direct military conflict with Russia at some point in the not too distant future - a scary prospect but the way things are going, it's not out of the question. In short, I can't see share prices doing anything for the foreseeable future other than crawling along the floor or falling further. At the first sight of some global positivity returning, shares will obviously rebound but that's a very long way off I would say. These falls aren't necessarily down to the company alone, it's just an incredibly gloomy time and I think many investors are just opting to stay out. Like me, they're not even tempted to buy at the current rock bottom prices because the outlook is so bleak - the Russia/Ukraine situation in particular is uncharted territory - we've never been closer to WW3 than we are right now. The only small glimmer of hope is if Trump wins the presidency next year. I don't think the world can take another 4 years of Joe Biden.

Weighing on the share price, as with most other shares, will be the Ukraine crisis and the crisis in the middle east. If those two conflicts were to suddenly end, the markets would see a huge rebound. Sadly that's not going to happen anytime soon. Share price movements aren't just dictated by how the company is performing - all the things going on in the world also have a huge impact. And that's very much the case right now.

Https://totaltele.com/vodafone-and-altice-begin-german-fibre-rollout-through-new-joint-venture/

Warren Buffett often talks about moats. Capita offers vital services to the government for example that can't easily be duplicated by another company, in terms of infrastructure, technology, expertise, experience and cost. Capita, one could argue, has such a moat. Companies that truly are in such a position are hard to find.

Https://uk.investing.com/indices/uk-100-futures

UK stocks rise as slower August hiring boosts rate pause optimism

https://uk.investing.com/news/economy/uk-stocks-open-higher-as-oil-prices-us-bond-yields-dip-3148351

Top 25 shareholders own 73.39% of the company

Schroder Investment Management Limited 19.16%

RWC Partners Limited 16.51%

BlackRock, Inc. 5.24%

Marathon Asset Management Limited 4.25%

The Vanguard Group, Inc. 4.04%

M&G Investment Management Limited 2.56%

Legal & General Investment Management Limited 2.06%

HSBC Global Asset Management (UK) Limited 1.97%

Fidelity International Ltd 1.97%

Norges Bank Investment Management 1.78%

HBOS Investment Fund Managers Limited 1.66%

JPMorgan Chase & Co, Brokerage and Securities Investments 1.47%

Barclays Bank PLC, Wealth and Investment Management Division 1.3%

Dimensional Fund Advisors LP 1.24%

A J Bell Holdings Limited, Asset Management Arm 1.13%

Odey Asset Management LLP 1.12%

Capita Plc, ESOP 1.03%

Belgravia Capital, S.G.I.I.C., SA 0.89%

State Street Global Advisors, Inc. 0.84%

IG Group Holdings Plc, Asset Management Arm 0.58%

abrdn plc 0.56%

River and Mercantile Asset Management LLP 0.56%

Momentum Global Investment Management Ltd. 0.51%

Rathbones Investment Management Limited 0.49%

BCEE Asset Management 0.46%

Ownership Breakdown

State or Government 0.02% (276,970 shares)

Public Companies 0.09% (1,531,903 shares)

Individual Insiders 0.2% (2,588,014 shares)

Private Companies 0.2% (3,784,071 shares)

Employee Share Scheme 1.2% (19,406,593 shares)

General Public 15.2% (256,379,813 shares)

Institutions 83.1% (1,399,713,212 shares)

REWARDS

Trading at 55.8% below our estimate of its fair value

Earnings are forecast to grow 94.86% per year

Earnings have grown 15.1% per year over the past 5 years

Trading at good value compared to peers and industry

Price-To-Sales vs Peers: CPI is good value based on its Price-To-Sales Ratio (0.1x) compared to the peer average (1x).

Price-To-Sales vs Industry: CPI is good value based on its Price-To-Sales Ratio (0.1x) compared to the UK Professional Services industry average (0.8x).

Price-To-Sales vs Fair Ratio: CPI is good value based on its Price-To-Sales Ratio (0.1x) compared to the estimated Fair Price-To-Sales Ratio (0.5x).

Below Fair Value: CPI (£0.16) is trading below our estimate of fair value (£0.37)

Significantly Below Fair Value: CPI is trading below fair value by more than 20%.

Capita's revenue is forecasted to decline at -0.2% per annum while its annual earnings is expected to grow at 94.9% per year. EPS is expected to grow by 96%. Return on equity is forecast to be 12.9% in 3 years.

Earnings vs Savings Rate: CPI is forecast to become profitable over the next 3 years, which is considered faster growth than the savings rate (1.4%).

Earnings vs Market: CPI is forecast to become profitable over the next 3 years, which is considered above average market growth.

High Growth Earnings: CPI is expected to become profitable in the next 3 years.

Earnings Trend: CPI is unprofitable, but has reduced losses over the past 5 years at a rate of 15.1% per year.

Reducing Debt: CPI had negative shareholder equity 5 years ago, but is now positive and has therefore improved.

Insider Buying: CPI insiders have bought more shares than they have sold in the past 3 months.

Dilution of Shares: Shareholders have not been meaningfully diluted in the past year.

2reincrnated, would be interested to see how you arrived at that valuation.. perhaps you could share? For example, was it a particular brand of tealeaves you use?

Lordy "JL is only doing what any CEO would do, who is in the fortunate position to retire - maxing out his pot'. The BoD are in the dock for not performance managing him effectively, and in particular the chair"

That's not how it works, Lordy.

A chairman can appoint, evaluate, and fire the CEO. The CEO still holds the highest position in the operational structure of the company, and all other executives answer to the CEO.

Tim Weller purchased 539,176 shares on 6 September, in a single transaction. Weller paid 16.6089p for each share, valuing the transaction at a total of £89,551.20. I would describe that as quite a substantial investment and clearly a vote of confidence in the company. Strange how Lordy says he's in at 37p average and yet proceeds to knock the company even when a director buys half a million shares? I'm NOT invested here and don't have a problem saying so. I may buy, I may not, but what I would never do is claim to be a holder when I'm not - I'd rather be straight with people but that's just me.