Member Info for HumpyDumpy

China will probably hold fire attacking Taiwan until the new semiconductor factories being constructed in the US are on stream. Trump will probably happily leave them to it then. It seems everything is being put in place for that to happen.

Yeah, well done Andy. This has been my biggest loser for some time. Luckily I spread my bets so not the end of the world. Nothing to say on this one other than I got it totally wrong!

It hasn’t taken Iran very long to find Trump’s weakness. He may have the fire power, but they have more brains.

Surely if nothing else the elevated oil price will give BP a golden moment to pay down its debt much quicker than it otherwise could. The debt level has always been my biggest bugbear and anything that helps with that should be like a dose of steroids to the share price. Those are my simple thoughts anyway. I have topped up substantially over the past week. No matter what, this is solid long term.

Results look fab to me, but as always depends on what the market is expecting.

Had a first nibble at 496. Seemed rude not to.

"You can't just replace Guinness". Yes, you can, and lots did when there was the supply shortage. I visited Bristol Beer Factory for a tour a few months after the shortage last year. They said their Stout sales went up something stupid like 1000% when the Guinness shortage was on, and after it was back on stream lots of local pubs kept stocking their product as they liked supporting local breweries and customers enjoyed it just as much. Years ago everybody had Gordons when they had a G&T. I can't think of the last time I had Gordons in a G&T now. Guinness is a special brand, but complacency is what kills businesses.

Amongst other things that could include when they ran out of Guinness last year and customers had to source alternative stouts from competitors. Guinness is such a strong brand obviously most customers will have been able to do nothing about it, but there are other sellers of stout out there and competitors did benefit. Ultimately, all of Diageo’s products are capable of being replaced by competing products, so if customers ask for discounts etc and they don’t get ‘em, they can simply stock others instead.

Disagree CEF. I may be well down on DGE today (and indeed well down on DGE over many months!), but more than compensated by other stocks I hold including Valterra, HSBC and Relx. FTSE has had a good year this year, but generally a FTSE tracker would produce some pretty poor returns. Spread your risk, yes, but in my view an index tracker just gets too diluted for really strong returns.

Well done Andy! I’m out and about so haven’t been able to read the update yet - but seems clear from the comments it’s a shocker. A new CEO is always going to paint a bleak picture though - so they can take full credit for any uptick. Luckily no margin calls on being long - otherwise I’d be finished on this one!

You seem to get flustered very easily Satan. Something to keep an eye on. Not a good trait when investing.

Who cares? Their comments on this board aren’t going to influence the share price.

It was a statement Satan. Maybe a bit punchy, but was not intended to be an attack. Take it easy.

They’ve said before they don’t Satan. They just find it interesting. I don’t have any problem with that. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and always good to hear another perspective.

I'm a solicitor. We are a cautious lot and generally value quality, consistency and dependability over all else. We are constantly battered by companies seeking to sell us the latest whizzy AI based services, and 2 weeks later another one comes along which makes the last one seemingly redundant. Throughout all of this, we have never questioned losing Lexis Nexis. Everything else in the market is a bolt on at best. Things may change, but lawyers generally are a conservative lot, so I think any rate of change will be slower than expected. Provided Relx invest in their own products they should be fine.

Just need a few hefty director buys now. If they don’t come at these levels we have a problem.

Let’s keep it civil guys. We all have different opinions. We’ll see who has got it right in due course.

Wanted some of these for some time. I'm in!

Well, I would say good luck, but I'm on the opposite side on this one. We can review in 4 weeks time!

How much further do you think it has to go down Andy? It seems peculiar to me to watch a stock drop for years and then short it when any potential drop is clearly more limited than it has been for years.