Member Info for GoCPI

They will start red and finish up higher. My chips are in place. :-)

A bounce back in the US is far likely on Monday and will help us here too. CPI - well placed after the current turmoil washes over, IMO. Market now needs time to digest the outcomes from the trade war that's been unleashed and will take time to discount stock prices depending on what happens to prices and how the consumers react to those.

Our markets will only but follow what transpires in the US markets. Not too much more pain the near term now, IMO.

Terry - OK now for some facts then.

"Like it or not tariffs were part of the Trumps manifesto, it is a fact, American people voted for Trump in a large landslide, fact and therefore the manifesto."

No, they did not. Numpty barely exceeded Biden's EC count (312 to 226 versus 306-232) and way down on popular vote % win at 1.5% versus 4.5% for Biden. If you want a real definition of a landslide, just look at what Gipper (Ron) did in 1980 (489 versus 49) - that's a landslide if there ever was one.

"If they did not like what is happening Trumps poll rating would be going down and the democrats rising, it is not and the Democrats has fallen very badly, fact, again why do you believe American people are against the tariffs given this fact or are they all numpty economically illiterate shallow heads?"

Facts - It's already slipped to his lowest approval rating since the start of his second term. And that was prior to the post Liberation day market chaos.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5230291-trump-approval-rating-dip-poll/

"The main difference between tariffs being put on USA goods and those imposed by the USA are the tariffs on USA goods were put on bit by bit by many countries over many years when they found they could get away with these. Trump decided enough is enough and retaliated and put these tariffs on all in one go as the first move to put an end to this situation. "

Decades of precedence from both Republican and Dem presidents, starting Gipper, HW, Billy bob,GW, Obama set US on this path. THinking that you can rip these out in one term without a credible plan to bring Mfg back to the US is tripe.

"The result of all the tariffs on USA goods has created an unsustainable trade imbalance where huge amounts of cash are flowing out of the USA, how would you fix this? The only other way I can see to fix this is to ban the import of goods into the USA, would you prefer that route?"

Check with the American people when they start losing jobs in the coming weeks assuming numpty doesn't pull back.

"Another result of the tariffs is a huge investment in industry in the USA, companies from all round the world are moving production into/back to USA, fact.

One of the huge new investments is chip factories being set up in the USA not only giving a boost to the USA economy but securing Chips for USA use. Think back to just after Covid lockdowns when new $50,000 cars we stuck in storage because they could not import a $500 chip. Does this not benefit the USA?"

ROFL - chip factories are being setup in the US because of Biden's IRA act that provides susbidies to manufacturers to setup plants here - these are not because of numpty's tariffs. Tariffs discourage imports and whilst balancing trade deficits on that count, wither lowers consumption because of high prices OR reduces US importer's profits because of them absobing the higher import taxes. Neither is good for the market or consumers.

Over and out. Travel

Trisor - thanks for confirming my central thesis that economic illiteracy and brown nosing is truly alive and kicking in the MAGA world. When one can't debate economics, you turn to obfuscation. I'm afraid. there's nothing more to be gained from these pointless debates with you on this topic. We'll soon know which way the markets and the economy are moving towards.

I fear for CPI's stock prospects in the near term, but with its cost cutting mantra and substaintial progress made aleady, we'll still be fine in the medium to long run.

"Trade tariffs are bad for all parties involved, this is a fact that has played out, and is playing out now.

I suspect it is a short term play for Trump to bully countries and declare a win of sorts, but they will not last very long."

HHH81 - Amen. Given he drops his trousers everytime Dow gets sold off even a bit, I'm not quite sure what more he could be dropping over this weekend when he realises the amount of damage being caused to the economy by the jarring market selloffs in the 2 days after Liberation Day. I'd hope that saner voices are whispering sense into numpty's ears and urging him not to commit economic suicide inside his first 100 days in office. We'll see.

"You haven’t dealt with Terry’s central point. Tariffs imposed on the US and the current US debt standing at 37 trillion which needs refinancing this year."

Trisor - I sincerely recommend that if you don't understand macroeconomics and how government is continually financed/refinanced by the Fed, then you should be a lot more careful throwing numbers around.

Now to the facts. The correct fact is indeed that circa $37T is the current debt levels of the US government, but no it doesn't all need to be refinanced on an annual basis. The Fed's debt obligations is spread over short-dated t-bills to longer dated treasuries ( 2YR to 30YR) and they are refinanced as they come to maturity - the Fed runs weekly treasury/t-bill auctions to refinance or issue new year.

Here's another simple economic fact for you. There's a big difference between fiscal balance (Surplus or deficit) and trade balance (Surplus or deficit). Trade deficits which is what numpty is focused on with his current global tariff wars is the difference between the value of imports and exports in the currency in which the trade is run in (USD in this case) and that has an impact on the GDP calculation metrics, not on a country's debt levels which is primarily driven by Fiscal deficits. Fiscal deficit is a simple function of excess government spending over income, and it's fiscal deficits that drive up government debt levels, not trade deficits. DOGE is looking to address this and that is a always a good thing, but that is what drives debt levels.

However, MAGA numpties in the US think that a bit of economic illiteracy shouldn't get in the way of facts. And the Brexiteers concur and for good measure, throw in a healthy amount of brown nosing.

"So tariffs put on by Trump are Indiscriminate but those put on by China, India, EU etc are not Indiscriminate but fine, in a nutshell tariffs put on by left wing governments are good don't inflict pain but ones by right wing governments in retaliation are numpties and economically illiterate and inflict pain on their own citizens. Trump was elected on a clear ticket to do this so I guess democracy is also for numpties and the economically illiterate where totalitarian regimes like China are allowed to put as many tariffs and regulations to stop imports while coping everything, breaking patents because they are not Trump, not democratic and are not right wing."

Terry - don't twist yourself into knots making the silly argument that the American people elected Trump to tariff the world into a global recession or worse. They voted him in for the promises he made to get prices lower for them, keep the economy growing and keep employment high. How you get there is the detail that's left to those that they voted in. And that's where economic literacy comes in. American consumers never bothered about where their goods came from as long as they came in cheap to them via importers (who made their margins selling them with solid margins). They never cared about this supply chain as long as their needs for cheap goods were met, and these supply chains took decades to build. Sure, there can always be imbalances in trade and that's driven by consumer demand. To focus on certain countries, who'd argue against shafting China as they are never were a reliable partner who shared common values with consuming countries like the western economies - however, sort out your supply chains before you unleash chaos for your voters.

However, don't for a minute show yourself as an economic illiterate with the notion that you can suddenly shake up entire global manufacturing supply chains by taxing imports from all countries at once and think that you can force manufacturing to come back to the US in a hurry OR that you can manufacture goods at a similar cost to nations with cheap labour that guarantee US consumers buy goods at prices that they're currently used to. However well intentioned his global tariff route is in numpty's shallow head, it won't stack up to his expected outcomes of increased US employment, economic growth and employment growth. When corporate profit growth outlook vanishes, job cuts will inevitably follow and America will then be in the throes of a recession, inevitably taking the world with it. Uncertainty for businesses is at a high and the street is correctly reflecting that in stock prices since 'Liberation Day'. This is what economic illiteracy can do to you.

I suspect there's not much point in having an economic literacy argument with you though.

"I guess the FT is now a numpty and economically illiterate."

No, the illterate are by definition those who can't comprehend basic economics. This MAGA shiite is about to inflict a lot of pain on US citizens. Economics 101 - Indiscriminate tariffs are a shiite way to take back control of your economic destiny and the market seems to agree very much. If and when a recession arises as a consequence and job losses begin, that's when the sh*it hits the fan for Numpty and his illiterate economic policies. This would be the stupi*dest economic self-goal in the history of such in the US - I can't think of too many precedents like these though.

"You're economically illiterate - JCB may well have made such an announcement but... if Trump continues then pretty soon there will be no point in making any investment into USA because it will be as isolated and poor as North Korea."

The point that the daft trumpers are missing is that the US is a consumption driven economy where the cost of labour is a lot more expensive and hence the cost of producing goods that numpty wants to completely onshore will A. be expensive and B. will take time to implement - this won't be quick re-adjustment, and the pain on the US economy will be enormous in the short to medium term. Prices will go up immdeiately because of tariffs and the only way that the fed can cut in the face of this steepening inflation is if a recession is underway.

History has shown over and over that even a small increase in tariffs (taxes for US consumers) results in a dramatic market sell-off from peak to trough. A large scale increase is tariffs on a scale implemented from tomorrow has the potential to trigger a deep recession, when coupled with the large scale DOGE cuts being implemented. Tax cuts will be too little and too late - unless numpty pulls back, a US recession is baked in and that'll trigger a global one.

Do you Trump brown-nosers really fathom the utter tripe that you're spouting and then claiming you're economically competent? If you actually believe that tariffs 'implemented' on the scale they were is good for the US economy, you truly deserve to lose your shirt in your stock investments.

The scale of tariffs imposed by Numpty are leading the global economy down one path - a severe global recession (or possibly worse) along the lines of what we saw when the Smoot-Hawley kicked in during the 1930s. And at that time the global economy wasn't even as tightly coupled as it is now. You'll need your head examined if you think that Americans won't be impacted by the scale and breadth of these tariffs.

If numpty doesn't pull back quickly then a US recession is a given and you actually think that'll be viewed as just fine because in next year's midterms because of possible tax cuts that should be implemented in a few months time? Gosh, I thought Meekie's lefty views were insufferable, but you Trumpers' rightist brown nosing tripe is worse. Bet this is why you thought Brexit would be amazing for the British economy?

Unfortunately, we'll (CPI) also suffer if the I*diot in the White house carries on with this drama beyond a bit of theatre phase (i.e. a few days or weeks). A breakdown to all-time lows for us is on the cards and that's no fear mongering, even if we don't deserve it.

I don't really put much credence on low volume moves like today. I get every little helps, but this isn't 'the sign' that I need in order to satisfy myself that a real turn has happened.

Sounds about right, Auson. LOL..

MildTiger's shorts are being pulled down and I can only wonder what that is showing up? ROFL..

"They obviously got that wrong it was 7%"

Nope, they didn't get it wrong. The 7% dilution was for the £30 institutional investor equity raise. The £54.6m convertible bonds that Moulders took on will lead to further dilution when converted to shares (conversion price not known yet as conversion can't take place until 15/10/2025) and the £5.4m payment to convert partly paid F and G shares into ordinary shares will add a further 17m shares to the count (circa 1.2%).

@Jcj07 - you well know that your dour outlook rankles me, but I'll put my hand up and say I can understand your situation/position, particularly if you've invested a lot of money at higher levels and you're staring at large paper losses. I truly hope that your recover from those paper losses.

Objectively speaking though, this comment isn't grounded in reality.

"A company in decline, apart from having reduced debt and god knows at what cost, (leaving a skeleton operation no doubt), every metric is going backwards. "

Not every metric is going backwards, far from it.

Revenue - Backwards

Headcount - Backwards (adjusting cost base with revenue base - it's that simple)

Impairments - Backwards ( function of previous high cost acquisitions)

EBITDA margin - Forwards

Free cash flow - Forwards

Net Debt - Forwards

Dividend - Forwards

MS can't control US macro, but he's at least acknowledged short comings in operational execution at S4 and made some required changes. I'm not in the despondent camp when it comes to outlook on S4's future nand its quite easy to be that in light of what's happened in the past 3 years or so. But valuation is rock-bottom and so is sentiment. And the icing on the cake is the US centric nature of the business. My bets are firmly on the long side, and I'm not saying that this is coming good this week or the next. If we get trashed down some more, c'est ca.

I supose I can all of this because my average price isn't that high - it's in the low 40s and I'm not staring down the barrel like some with a higher average cost. I'm keeping the faith and holding for the inevitable turn in fortunes here.

MildTiger trades S4 daily on his monopoly board. Good on him.

AdamPL - good on you for getting the explanation out and preventing the confused lot from getting any more confused.

@AdamW - 2 1/15p is the current nominal or face value of the share. The nominal/face value of a share has no bearing on the market price as that's all down to current earnings and future earning expectations, if the efficient market hypothesis is anything to go by (that's a joke BTW). That 2 1/15p face value consolidates to 2 1/15p multiplied by 15 = 31p after the 1 for 15 share consolidation is executed before the market opens on 29th April.

To repeat, that 31p nominal value has no bearing on the market price, which should normally go up 15X of what it will be trading at the end of 28th April. Who knows what this useless UK stock market will do though!!!

YIAB - I'd say he's exuding quiet confidence for this year. GM revenues will full kick-in from Q2 and hence some caution on Q1, which anyway tends to be a quieter quarter.

THe management is now discussing AI case-studies that S4 has executed, backed by deep tech knowledge which is missing with the competition. First American had stopped spend with S4 fully in Q2 2024 - the comparatives for the tech services division gets better from that point. However, new business wins revenues will start ramping from Q2, from the likes of GM. It sounds like Google and Amazon are effectively now the top 2 customers for S4, with Meta now possibly dropping off. When they'll pivot from AI capex spend to opex spend will be a key indicator for S4's revenue increase from them.

The Financial Services client that is causing consternation in the tech consulting divisions with their spending cuts is First America Inc, and not Amex. It was called out in the release today and Martin said that on the earnings call just now.

I feel for you chaps. I wasn't tempted to move from S4 to THG, and maybe just as well. However much Crafty/StanleyB pump this stock, until Mad Mouldy is out of here, I can't see much love for S4. More importantly, we need to see a turnaround in the economic fortunes of UK Inc - will Labour finally stand up and work for growth rather than pay lip service to it?

I wish you holders well!!