Member Info for Grayling

Deelar. When referring to Carnival my point was general and not specific to RR, who have no skin in the game in that sector. A very interesting analysis was just published which stated that societal changes that normally take a decade or more in "normal" times have happened during lock-down in just 3 months. Working from home will be incredibly widespread after this is over, so the commercial viability of large office space will be under severe threat. There will be far far fewer short haul flights to attend business meetings, most of which will be conducted using Microsoft teams (or equivalent). In my sector, thousands of scientists were in the air at any one time attending international conferences varying in size from a few hundred to several thousand delegates in exotic locations. All of this is gone and been replaced by virtual events and I doubt that it will ever return. High street retail is virtually finished (Intu adminstrators on standby). This is just the tip of the iceberg and "online" for everything from healthcare to government services will be the new norm, like it or not. There will be big opportunities for investors (automation in the meat processing industry?) while other sectors will dwindle and decline upsetting the old world order. At the moment I am torn over RR and am not sure whether to exit once my break even is reached and put the money into a new growth sector or sit it out. Tough call.

I have every confidence in RR as an operational business. I just don't think that it is possible to judge how passenger numbers will be impacted going forwards and how this will hit operations/profits. It only takes one mass outbreak to result from a long-haul A380/747 flight and all bets are off. It could be much worse though, we could be holding Carnival as anyone contemplating booking a cruise has to be outright nuts. I suspect the the Indian ship-breakers will be busy for years to come as sentiment will be irreversibly negative and the costs of recommissioning mothballed liners absolutely prohibitive. I cannot see anyone wanting a glamour stop over in Rio at the moment and a lot of countries just will not let liners dock.

I more than doubled my holding at 250.5p on the 14/05. I regard this a a bit of a gamble and now have as many as I would be comfortable with holding long term. I do not think we are out of the woods yet, for all of Boris's exuberant declarations about the sunny uplands. Some industries have clearly not learnt anything about containment and prevention (meat processing in UK, Germany and USA for example). I am still waiting for airfare refunds from May and I will not be re-booking anything for this year, irrespective of what the UK govt pronounces as "safe".

Keep taking the pills mate :-)

Biased? Not necessarily, negative yes, but paid for by a shorter....you need to have a good chat with yourself and get out more (restrictions permitting of course). Conspiracy theories are the last resort of the nutter, pace Trump. You will be counting the hairs on the palms of your hands next :-)

You are joking surely? No I think it could be today's announcement of a good set of results plus the payment of a 56p per share dividend this coming September (making 80p for the year) and in line with their previous declaration of a progressive dividend policy going forward. Oh and also because they are not Centrica!

Could not agree more as the business model relies totally on high volume low margin sales. Even at 1m SD I do not see this lot making money this side of Xmas. The client demographic puts them right in the firing line for Covid19 and no amount of bravado will overcome the base fear of infection and its likely consequences in that age group.

RE sentiment have a read of this: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4350421-fevertree-compounder-for-long-term-investor?utm_medium=email&utm_source=seeking_alpha&mail_subject=fqvtf-fevertree-compounder-for-the-long-term-investor&utm_campaign=rta-stock-article&utm_content=link-2

MD It is pretty clear that you do not like AZN, but the problems you refer to and which resulted in fines in both the UK and USA predate the tenure of Pascal Soriot by over a decade with the mis-selling of drugs in the mid 1990's and before and were settled before he took over in 2012. Soriot restructured the company in 2013 and from then on has won the battle to re-establish AZN as a global force in oncology. I know many of the scientists involved in their lung cancer programme personally and they are amongst the best in the world. Forget vaccines it is a mere sideshow compared with the real business at AZN

The vaccine stuff is just PR fluff and will not impact the bottom line one way or the other. AZN is focused elsewhere under Soriot and the smart money knows that and is not distracted. Sure a few idiots might have bought in on the back of the Covid19 froth and the price may retreat a little as a result, but long term this is rock solid and one of the best core holdings you can have in your portfolio. It has been held back for years over pipeline fears and the patent cliff. Soriot has addressed all of that over the past decade and re-positioned AZN as a global leader in oncology. GSK offloaded their oncology portfolio a while back, but are now busy playing catch-up trying to get back into the game. GSK meanwhile have gone big in vaccines, nothing to do with Covid19 though, their shingles vaccine is the blockbuster for them. I hold both AZN and GSK long term.

Vaccines have little or nothing to do with the recent strength of AZN it is simply because it has good growth potential thanks to the success of its oncology portfolio and it’s dividend is rock solid. AZN has been undervalued on pipeline fears for years now but Soriot has proven the doubters wrong big style. Makes the Pfizer takeover bid at £55 a share seem even more of a joke now than it did back in 2014

"Hi Grayling, what makes you think you will lose your money , you think RR will go bust?" Not exactly what I said at all. I stated that I had made an investment in RR in the knowledge that I may lose all of my money and no I do not think that RR will go bust. The government would bail it out if that were a likely scenario, just as they did before in 1971. However if RR were to accept a government loan to stay afloat, then the dividend (and all staff bonus payments in cash or shares) would be suspended until that loan was repaid. I suspect though that RR will raise their corporate debt privately as far as they dare to avoid the latter.

No I averaged down Friday, buying at £2.48 and for the long-term but I did so in the knowledge that I may lose my money. However, I would take issue with the "seen all this before" comment. Unless you are as old as Methusalah you have definitely never seen a share wipe-out caused by a global pandemic before. Yes RR busted itself over the RB211 and was nationalised in 1971 and it rode out the banking crash after 2008, but the present situation is unprecedented and nobody can predict what the future of civil aviation will be once we get through all of this. Ask yourself this, how soon would you be prepared to wait in line with 300 or so strangers and board a plane with them unless you knew they had all been tested for or vaccinated against Covid19? How likely is the latter situation (universal testing or vaccination) in the near term? A vaccine may come to the rescue, but not likely this year. Can the airlines survive this prolonged shutdown and what are the financial consequences of trying to return a fleet of airliners, which has been grounded for months, to active service with the likely deterioration of on board systems?

Both Sandbar and Alliance Bernstein further increased their short positions in RR as declared 13/05/20. At 1.26% now the highest they have been since disclosure was introduced back in 2012 and these new entrants mark the first shorting activity in RR shares since April 2017.

Sell them now and take the profit I assume or they could hang on in the hopes that they drop below 2.50? Whats with today's spread (4.98%)? anyone would think this was an AIM share!

Sandbar Asset Management went short on RR. 7/05/20 so now up to 1.09% total loaned out between them and AB. Not a huge bet against RR, but marks an uptrend.

I would stick to FOREX if I were you :-)

Our Chairman purchased approx £2K worth of RR. shares on the open market (price £2.81). Welcome news but hardly a ringing endorsement given his likely net worth is it?

Whatever. Still all the money is piling into healthcare stocks (no divi cuts there) and defensives like Unilever, Diageo and RB (no divi cuts there either). Out are Banks, Oilers and Insurance Co's with exposure to business and travel liabilities (lots of divi cuts there), housebuilders (moribund) and travel (Air, sea and rail). Time to reposition the portfolio perhaps?

So in good time when a Covid19 becomes available and, like the common yearly flu vaccine is proven both effective and safe, you won't be taking it up then? Good luck with that,