We would love to hear your thoughts about our site and services, please take our survey here.
Whatever some may think of Trump (I'm neutral), he's a fighter. His support has come on very strongly in the last hour or so in some key States like Texas, Ohio & North Carolina.
Though Biden still leads overall as I write, 98-80, it looks like, despite all the (useless) polls, Trump may be headed for a 2nd term in office. Quite something when you consider so many so-called "experts" writing him off. - GL & goodnight all!
PS: It also won't do the oil sector any harm.
Daave,
Once again, you need to hold until ex-date, 5th November. Anyone can buy until the close of the 4th & still qualify for dividends.
You can sell from 8.00 AM on the 5th. You'll still appear on the record register anyway. Those who bought before the ex date do NOT need to hold until the 6th. - As stated before, I'm in long-term, so to each their own. GL.
RedArrow,
You have to hold until it goes ex date. That's on 5th November. You could sell early on Thursday morning & still get the dividend. Those selling before 5th November will miss out on the dividend.
Your money, your call naturally. I'm using mine to add DRIP shares. - GL
Paddy,
That's if Sunak isn't just doing the bidding of Johnson's advisers? Hence why predecessor Javid walked. The shambles seems more so the doing of the incoherent Johnson & SAGE's fear mongering. Nothing against BJ personally, but he's too indecisive for me to have much confidence in. - GL.
02B@C,
Keep in mind that US markets are still high. DOW was about 20,000 when Trump took office. Today as I write, it's near 27,000. By contrast FTSE 100 saw nearly 7000 way back in 1999. Today it's a still very poor circa 5650. The former may be about right in view of all the QE from the FED. But FTSE 100 is woefully oversold.
All things being equal, I'd say we'll rise. But things have rarely been equal more recently. Anything but! So I'm not 100% confident for this year.
The only certainty is that BP & most other commodities will be far higher when FTSE 100 gets back on track. As it will do because economies have to be opened up eventually.
By the by, I've no hate for Johnson, but he's weak & easily led by SAGE. No leadership qualities. Hence the record number of U-turns. We should indeed shield the most vulnerable, but allow the economy to recover. Sunak knows this & disagrees with lockdown. Maybe we'd be better off with Sunak at Number 10, IMO.
Nice rise today, but I agree, BP still well oversold. - GL.
Appleby,
Chart shows that it's oversold. Whether the 3 month chart or far longer-term. That doesn't mean it can't go lower of course driven by bearish sentiment. Maybe lower still when it goes ex date next week? Who knows? I can't call it with any confidence, so to each their own. Their money, their call.
But for those willing to sit tight, IMO, one could do far worse than buy BP at recent levels. - GL.
Paddy,
Indeed. I agree. That's my biggest concern too. Less so who wins. Trump has already indicated that he might not accept any defeat due to a record surge in postal votes. But that's the last thing we or markets need. So if Trump wins, whilst I'm neutral on him (ie. no fan, nor hater), so be it & we can all look ahead. But I suspect it may be closer than some think.
The main thing is the US avoiding protracted legal wrangling. A huge stimulus package seems sure to follow.
Oil stocks will be fine over time. Holders just need to stay calm & keep their heads. Avoid rash selling at what's close to 28 year lows. - GL.
Paddy,
I agree. I'm no admirer of Biden or Trump. Wholly neutral. But just getting the uncertainty of US elections over with seems key to global markets recovering. Including the woefully poor FTSE that follows like a dog whenever US sells-off, less so when it shoots up.
Huge stimulus package will follow. For all Biden's anti-oil rhetoric, it is just that. Oil is far too big a business in USA to be meaningfully replaced anytime soon.
Worst case scenario? US election result is a very tight result & Trump refuses to go, but tries to fight it in the courts. That added prolonged uncertainty would be disastrous. It'd delay stimulus & then we're all facing further financial losses.
I just hope there's a clear outcome on 3rd November. Get the uncertainty done with. - GL.
PS: Good to see other oil stocks confirming dividends today. Hopefully oil sector is very close to the bottom.
Elkarter,
VG points. Far too much inconsistency from UK's government over recent few months. That creates lasting uncertainties which damages confidence across the economy. Such negativity has filtered into UK's markets. Hence the seriously huge outflows of investment cash out of FTSE 100.
Much comes down to the clarity of guidance from leadership. Whatever we feel about Trump, his policies have consistently placed US economic interests first. The FED have supported that. All US investors know where they stand & after next week's US election, even if Biden wins, I think US markets will probably recover quite well, helped by another stimulus package.
The UK? I no longer have much confidence in the dithering Johnson or Sunak, though I suspect the latter is going along with policies he largely disagrees with. It'll be a long road to recovery for many UK stocks besides BP. - ATB.
PS: I know UKX briefly hit below 4900 in March when we went into nationwide lockdown, but back then they were predicting worst-case scenarios & huge loss of life. Later that was seen as an over reaction. Hence by mid-May UKX was back over 6000. Now we know that relatively few people die from COVID-19, there seems no need to trash the economy again. - Cheers.
Elkarter,
Very true. The anomaly is that whilst indexes like the DOW are down about 2000 points from January, when it was high anyway, percentage-wise it's lost little & is still far higher than when Trump too over.
FTSE 100 has dropped FAR more in relative terms, having started January at over 7600. It's already hit lows today of 5525+. That's a percentage loss of well over 30% across UK's main stock market in little over 6 months. Decades of gains lost!
Time that Bailey of the BoE pulled his finger out & supported markets instead of waiting for the US to always take the lead. So far, he's looked like another clueless time-waster like Carney. - GL.
HappyInvestor,
I echo your comment at 14.09. If Corbyn had won the GE, I imagine few of us would have been mad enough to stake hard-earned cash in the FTSE. Sadly, what we have in Johnson's government seems at times little better. Dithering U-turns & damaging lockdowns with signals of more to come, rather than give added protections for the most vulnerable people. Meantime, record levels of debt continue piling up, increasing job losses, many people left much poorer & no doubt years of higher taxation to repay it.
The damage from all these lockdowns, including delayed medical interventions for other serious conditions, will also have exact a high price & cost lives. Where's the logic? Total shambles! - GL.
Ben,
About 28 year lows speaks volumes for what's happening globally. But then look at what a disgustingly weak index the FTSE 100 is. About 50% garbage!
When US saw successive record highs & other top indexes did well, FTSE 100 failed to follow. Now that previously stimulus-pumped & well overbought US markets sell off, this rubbish index of course follows, taking down quality stocks & all. UKX nearly 200 points down as I write. - GL.
Robina,
I suspect he was sold a dud time machine & whoever sold it to him, sold me & myriads of others the same garbage. We've been well & truly had. We're now stuck with time machines that only travel backwards & without any ability to change the past. Hence all the poorly mistimed buying. Such is life! ;o) - GL.
Berni,
Indeed, & even lower not inconceivable in this climate.
What we see is indeed growing fear & panic across many sectors, leading more people to abandon reason & capitulate at long-term lows. Financially self-destructive, but classic herd behaviour. Headless chickens. It becomes self-fulfilling.
The way it works: People get spooked by negative headlines. They start selling at loss. Others think, they must know something. So I'll sell too! The process snowballs. - Sadly, many know NOTHING & will only come out of this cycle a lot poorer. later, wealthy large funds will again scoop up many quality shares for very cheap & the entire process will replay at a later date.
Markets can be brutal. Back in March China actually temporarily banned shorting to protect their investors.
Whilst I'm neutral on shorters (ie. I hold no negative or positive emotions about them), truth is they can do no end of damage to investors confidence & cause those of a nervous disposition to lose heavily. - Take care all.
PS: I only know for sure that no-one is having these shares for cheap. Not until market offers over 400. That'll not happen anytime soon & I can live with that.
PSS: This site can’t cope with increased traffic. Goes down each time. Bummer.
REDDINGTONR,
I'm all in, having backed my views with my cash. Despite the disappointment, I'm focused on long-term. I’m also reminded of an oft-quoted comment by market trader & top economist Maynard Keynes going back a 100 years ago. Quote: “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.”
Little has changed since then. We see periods when sentiment drives markets more than reason. When emotions like fear dominates, many stocks get badly oversold. When euphoria takes over, many stocks get overbought.
But over time, both extremes see sharp corrections. I remain confident of a VG profit here within a personally acceptable timescale, ie. well into 2021 or even 2022. - GL.
A final buy from me at 198.56 using last Friday’s profits on BARC. This reduces my average to 226.
Some will say more “dumb money". Maybe? But these are not for short-term trading motives but a premeditated longer-term hold.
If I reduce the final average even lower via DRIP adds before meaningful recovery probably in 2021, even better.
But as ever, to each their own. - GLA.
Paddy,
Thanks, but with respect, MMs have minimal input in trading FTSE SPs. Far less than they do with small volume AIM stocks.
Most large volume trades are traded via SETS, which I mentioned in my prior post. While your broker & mine may use a MM for smaller so-called off-book trades, most of the large algos trades use SETS. A bit more about it below, quote: - ATB!
"SETS (stock exchange electronic trading system) is the electronic order-driven system for trading the UK blue chip stocks including FTSE 100 and FTSE Eurotop 300 stocks.
The SETS order book matches buy and sell orders on a price/time priority. On SEAQ all buys and sells go through a market maker which acts as an intermediary. The basis of SETS is that it directly matches willing buyers and sellers, creating efficiency in the markets by doing away with the intermediary of the market maker. This efficiency is true while the SETS system is populated by the most liquid and heavily-traded stocks, but if matched bargains operated on less liquid stocks, waiting for a buyer to match with a seller could take hours, days or weeks.
Because of the efficiency of the SETS system, stocks traded tend to have narrow spreads so the cost of entry and exit from a position is much smaller. As an ordinary ‘punter’ should you wish to buy or sell a SETS stock, your broker will invariably still trade through a market maker, who will not display separate prices but simply use the SETS Level 2 screen to indicate where the market lies."
https://www.sharesmagazine.co.uk/article/the-ultimate-guide-to-level-2
The SP is being manipulated that seems pretty obvious to me. Keep price down to push PIs to panic sell at low levels. Pretty commonplace in these volatile times!
====================================================
Paddy,
Whilst the SP continues to disappoint, how can anyone manipulate large volume FTSE stocks like BP, traded in a main stock exchange's via the SETS system, which is electronic & regulated? I'd be interested to know how you think this is achieved. If that was possible, why would large investment funds stake billions in a corrupt stock market?
My tuppence worth: no one is manipulating anything. Look across the FTSE 100. Sentiment is pretty woeful & today's financial press are highlighting the risks of a double-dip recession.
This will recover well when global economic activity does. No mystery, no manipulation. - GL.
Still too many headwinds across the global economy, hence a muted market reaction to Q3. Also not helped by a woefully weak UKX index. Latter struggling below 5800 as I write.
However, I’m relatively unfazed by the lack of enthusiasm. We know markets can be irrational. Bound to be much better times lie ahead for this sector once sentiment in general improves, realistically later in 2021. In fact, for now, I won't mind adding more DRIP shares at cheaper levels around December.
PS: This site going down at key times can be a bit annoying. But so it goes. - GL