Member Info for Grayling

Not sure I get this overall. The Witty regime exits the oncology market by selling the lot to Novartis for $16bn back in 2014. Four years later the new CEO re-enters the fray by buying a company with a lead oncology product in direct competition with others (mainly AZN in the UK at least) and the market deems that they have overpaid for the new assets? I for one am slightly confused.

MMmmmm Not sure about getting too excited about PARP inhibitors as this is a crowded marketplace and Astra Zeneca already have significant traction with Lynparza "The PARP inhibitor Lynparza is currently approved in over 60 countries for the treatment of platinum-sensitive relapsed ovarian cancer regardless of BRCA status. It is also approved in several countries, including the US and Japan, for germline BRCAm HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer - regulatory reviews are underway in the EU, Japan and other markets.

Nothing at all. The sale is cash neutral and will part fund the $13B acquisition of the Novartis consumer healthcare business already completed.

"Analytics in the city" And what exactly would that be? Tea leaves or charting or are we into macroeconomic modelling or quantum trading?

Just shows how out of touch you are. Do you really think that people go to see the Sleaford Mods and half of them come away annoyed at their political stance? Doh! As for it being bad for business, wrong as well, they have one of the fastest growing fan-bases in the UK. By the way what do you "sell"?

Funny that as a leading leave campaigner in Nottingham stated after the result that "people voted to leave because of immigration, zero-hour contracts and job prospects and said a "divide in Britain" had been exposed."

Nottinham's finest example of social mobility Sleaford Mods! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oeOwxc_j1c

I may be atypical but I am not in the slightest bit interested if Tesco (or anybody else for that matter) can offer me a basket of goods costing me say £55, which is on average £1.50 cheaper overall than shopping elsewhere. What matters to me is choice, environment and above all quality. When I started to shop there they had an interesting and varied wine offering, including a fine wine section and clearly aspired to compete with the best on quality in terms of food. This, along with a very generous loyalty scheme and clubcard plus, which guaranteed that we spent £400 a month in store, are all long gone and are now replaced by what can best be described as a dreary discount warehouse. Part of this is the age of the estate (the Morrisons, Asda and Sainsbury stores were all built in the past 5 years) the Tesco has been there since before 1992 when I moved here.

I have my portfolio with Halifax set to "automatic dividend reinvestment". Each time a divi is paid the cash goes straight back into the same stock. The dealing charge for this is minimal (ie not the standard £12.50 a trade) and you just pay the stamp duty. They also do a cheap dealing day (£3.95 a pop) once a month so any new money goes in via that route. Finally, the yearly admin charge for the account is only £12.50 irrespective of your balance. It is not often I would recommend a bank, but having heard what others are paying for similar, I think it is a steal. Oh and I don't work for them!

"And oddly enough in south East Asia Cowperthwaite is revered normal ppl have busts of him in their homes."

I am sure you spend many happy hours polishing yours :-)

Be careful who you choose as your champions. Some of John Cowperthwaite's other "great" achievements:
1. Throughout the 1960s, Cowperthwaite steadfastly refused to implement free universal primary education thus contributing to the relatively high illiteracy rates seen in today's older generation of Hong Kong citizens.
2. At a time when Hong Kong's roads were crippled by traffic congestion, Cowperthwaite also steadfastly opposed construction of the Mass Transit Railway. After he f****d off they built it and it became one of the world's most profitable railways.

Spot on with the compounding Gerry! As for buying more Vod I have been for years each time the dividend is paid. I much prefer to do that rather than try and second guess the market diving in and out of positions. Oh and hanging on to the Verizon shares when they split back in the day has also been very good both in terms of regular dividend payments and capital appreciation

I profoundly disagree regarding the stores and choice of lines. Round here Morrisons and Sainsbury (and to a lesser extent Asda) have bright modern looking stores with Morrisons in particuar standing out as well laid out and appealing. Tesco by contrast have spent diddly squat on its stores, which all look rather tired (like the staff). Lines I used to buy there have steadily disappeared and I have really noticed an increase in short-dated fresh food items so you need to check the label each time you buy to ensure it was not best by today/yesterday.

I do not think that the festive season will boost sales as much as the long hot summer did. When it is freezing cold and damp/wet (or both) my thoughts turn more to a good malt whisky or a high quality rum with an after dinner cigar. Of course the female market will persist over the holiday (along with bumper sales of fizz), so I am not exactly expecting a collapse in sales. I think future progress almost entirely hinges on market penetration overseas and particularly the USA, where they are clearly going for it in a big way. The initial investment may slow growth short term, but if they pull it off then the rewards could be enormous.

Well the Booker acquisition led recovery at Tesco is going great guns...........not. Even PointyHat has got bored with it!

Very interesting interview with Alan Greenspan this am.He was asked about Trump's "trade war" with China and how it will pan out if pursued further. He said that Trump's strategy for victory seemed be that by reducing the prosperity of the American people to such an extent that China is put into such a bad economic position that it is forced to capitulate then the ends would justify the means. Just how far he would be prepared to let living standards and personal wealth decline in the USA in order to achieve this goal remains to be seen. He also compared Trump to many South American populist leaders of the past who pop up and offer seemingly simple solutions to very complex problems and become almost a cult (Peron, Lula, Chavez). His comment was, see how all of that has ended up economically!

How does Hive make money? Is it just by selling the kit? My heating and all my lights are controlled from my phone/tablet using Hive gadgets and software. All of it bought on the cheap on Ebay and I pay CNA precisely zilch for the connection to their server and access to the system. What do you actually get if you do have an account/plan with them and pay monthly?

I do not think we are out of the woods yet and thinking this will be plain sailing back up towards 360 and above may be wishful thinking. I remain cautiously optimistic.

It might have been interesting back in May, but I think we have moved into quite different territory since then!

UKOG.......wishful thinking on the part of a disgruntled holder methinks. Looking at the facts UKOG only own 47% of the "Gatwick Gusher" (a glaring misnomer IMHO). UKOG is a struggling penny share and the company requires more funding over the next 12 months in order to survive thus diluting existing investors further. Quite how adding this near death minnow to the upstream portfolio would seem attractive to the CNA board is beyond me.

Has dropped circa £75K of his own dosh into RR shares yesterday. Modest purchase, but nice to see all the same.