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Disappointing dip during the short trading session today, with less than 11 million shares traded in London. Obviously some more people needed to sell to pay for this expensive time of the year! So, whatever our personal beliefs or cultural background, and however, whenever and wherever we celebrate, let us all make the most of this festive season. Steve
Just watched the old black & white film, having never seen it before, and it was almost as amusing as some of the recent posts here! I have concluded that the correct investment decision is the one we feel most comfortable with at the time, and serves our current circumstances best. We can all look back with the "benefit of hindsight" and wish we had done this, or hadn't done that, but we need to carry on from where we are now. If we had not been left shares in HSBC early this century/millennium, my wife and I would probably never have considered it as a suitable investment. The only "new" money we have invested was when the Rights Issue was made in 2009, which although not very convenient for us, seemed at the time - and has proved to be the case ever since - an opportunity too good to miss. For a while, we took all dividends in cash - to replenish the funds we had "raided" to take up the Rights Issue - in full. During the last three years we have taken mainly scrip dividends, and in so doing have continued to "Average Down" the price at which our shares were initially allocated. At the current level of dividends and exchange rates, the scrips we have taken this year are likely to return about 8% next year, and have already shown good capital growth, but we have no intention of selling any of them, or buying any on the open market, but may well continue to take some scrips when the price is right for us. I see that the share price has hardly moved today, despite the buyback having been completed. I will be quite satisfied if the share price at the end of the year is somewhere close to current levels - not many trading days left, and they tend to be fairly low trading volumes in late December. Steve
Only a few posts today, but opinions have varied from Strong Buy to Strong Sell, with a couple (of us) stating Hold and the rest offering No Opinion. I doubt if any of these opinions really affect the share price, especially with relatively modest trading volumes. There will always be those who take profits, and play the markets, trading frequently - hoping to sell high and buy low, and some do very well even after dealing costs, stamp duty etc. I see the buyback is now complete with only a few shares purchased early this morning, so what will happen to the share price now - especially in the short term? Despite the dip today, and we must expect to see fluctuations, let us hope that the upward trend that we have enjoyed since the middle of this year continues well into 2017, helped by some good results in February. Steve
We have seen normal market fluctuations, with about a 7p drop in the share price since the end of last week. The buyback has continued very strongly with over 31 million shares purchased this week, including exactly four million today - must now be very close to the year end target. The shares may well dip slightly in the New Year - that would be nothing unusual, but who knows - I certainly have no intention of selling any of my holding at this price. Have a good weekend all. Steve
...... What goes up must come down! Why the sudden surge last week, and the correction/sell-off (or whatever) today? A massive buyback today of over 7.8 million shares, taking the total to over 300 million shares - I wonder how far the share price would have fallen without that! With over £1.8 billion now spent on the buyback, the year-end target must now be in sight, but what will happen to the share price after that is complete? Is there a conflict between scrip dividends and buybacks? - why issue new shares on the one hand, and then buyback a similar quantity of shares at a higher price? The number of shares required to obtain at least one scrip dividend share depends on the level of dividend and scrip price ($ USA) and this is mentioned in each scrip dividend circular - in April only 31 shares were required, whereas in the most recent dividend 77 shares were required. There is a "compound" effect, because those of us who took scrips in April have already received three further dividends since then, two since July and one since September. We have also enjoyed some capital growth - long may it continue. I am sure we all look forward to the larger dividend to be declared in February and payable in early April. Hope this post isn't duplicated like my two previous ones - don't know what happened there - sorry folks. Steve
I was expecting things to be a bit quiet during December, but was pleasantly surprised by the increase in share price on Tuesday and Wednesday - over 50p in two days! Despite no buyback on Wednesday, over 15 million shares have been purchased this week. How realistic is the £10 figure mentioned? $10 (USA) is much more likely, but there is still some way to go to achieve that. Even current levels have not been seen since early 2014, but it would be good to soon return to the Spring 2013 high of just over 770p. Have a good weekend all, Steve
I was expecting things to be a bit quiet during December, but was pleasantly surprised by the increase in share price on Tuesday and Wednesday - over 50p in two days! Despite no buyback on Wednesday, over 15 million shares have been purchased this week. How realistic is the £10 figure mentioned? $10 (USA) is much more likely, but there is still some way to go to achieve that. Even current levels have not been seen since early 2014, but it would be good to soon return to the Spring 2013 high of just over 770p. Have a good weekend all, Steve
It may be slow, but at least it is progress in the right direction. This is the sixth month in row when the month-end closing price has been higher than the previous month-end closing price. At just under 47% the scrip dividend take-up is higher than I expected, but slightly down on the previous interim dividend, which had a considerably lower scrip price. Although I am sure we would all like to see the share price move up a bit more quickly, at least at this relatively low price more shares will be obtained during the buyback process for the fixed amount of $2.5 billion. I expect things will go a bit quiet for a while - historically HSBC trading volumes during December have been quite low, and it is unlikely that there will be any significant announcements prior to the year end results in February. We must wait and see what happens during the next few weeks. Steve
It may be slow, but at least it is progress in the right direction. This is the sixth month in row when the month-end closing price has been higher than the previous month-end closing price. At just under 47% the scrip dividend take-up is higher than I expected, but slightly down on the previous interim dividend, which had a considerably lower scrip price. Although I am sure we would all like to see the share price move up a bit more quickly, at least at this relatively low price more shares will be obtained during the buyback process for the fixed amount of $2.5 billion. I expect things will go a bit quiet for a while - historically HSBC trading volumes during December have been quite low, and it is unlikely that there will be any significant announcements prior to the year end results in February. We must wait and see what happens during the next few weeks. Steve
On Friday 28th October, one of our very frequent contributors wrote:- "If we don't see HSBC knocking out 650p plus within 4 weeks I eat my hat here" The four weeks have come and gone, and we didn't quite make it, but surely we should all be pleased that the share price ended the week at 641p, especially with low buyback and (London) trading volumes. Not sure about the tone of some recent posts, and don't understand why some people make such a big thing about small spelling mistakes, especially when it is clear what was meant - we are not sitting an English examination when we make our contributions, and some may not even have English as their first language! I expect we come from a variety of backgrounds, have been educated to different standards, have a wide range of hobbies and leisure interests, and may even have completely different work ethics, but what we do have in common is a real interest in HSBC, including the share price and dividends. I prefer to read (and write) things which have both correct spelling and good use of grammar - and was upset when the title of one of my posts corrupted the £ (pound) sign, but it appears to show correctly in the main body of the text. Even if we all used spell-check software, it may not always prevent every mistake:- "Eye halve a spelling chequer It came with my pea sea It plainly marques four my revue Miss steaks eye kin knot sea. Eye strike a key and type a word And weight four it two say Weather eye am wrong oar write It shows me strait a weigh. As soon as a mist ache is maid It nose bee fore two long And eye can put the error rite Its rare lea ever wrong. Eye have run this poem threw it I am shore your pleased two no Its letter perfect awl the weigh My chequer tolled me sew." Have a good weekend all, Steve
Hi HKHobo, I would love to think that the timing of the year-end results and ex-dividend date two days later is really significant - it is certainly very unusual, as I first mentioned on 26th October, and which your kind post (and SUF's) of 3rd November acknowledged. The reason I am not getting too excited about this is that HSBC have quite suddenly made significant/strategic changes in the past, which were not one-offs, but set new trends, including:- moving from "half-yearly" to "quarterly" dividends; paying the 3rd quarter dividend in December rather than the following January; the basis of calculating/choosing scrips - for those (of us) taking a mixture of cash/scrip dividends. For several years the fourth interim dividend was payable in early May, then for a couple of years it was paid at the end of April - this (calendar) year it was a bit earlier, and next April it will be paid at the beginning of the new (UK) tax year. Any good results will speak for themselves next year, and there is always an immediate/initial market reaction, with a more considered response in due course. We must (all) just wait and see and hope for the best - including a further significant buyback in 2017. Steve
Little has changed since the beginning of the week - just more of the same. The shares have traded within a fairly narrow price band, and trading volumes have been quite low for most of the week. The buyback has continued, but at a lower level than last week. It will be interesting to see if future reports/updates/dividend declarations are followed by such a quick ex-dividend date as that proposed for February next year - could this be a new trend? Were there really no posts on here on Wednesday - or have they all been removed? Have a good weekend all. Steve
The share price at the end of last year was 536.20p, so good to see some further progress today - closing at 638.30 - representing an increase of about 19% since 31st December 2015. Despite lower volumes traded (probably below average), and clearly some profit-taking when the share price exceeded 640p, the buyback continues strongly - at over 4.2 million shares today. Looking forward to 650p - and more, but we must be patient in this uncertain world. Steve
A new CLOSING high price (so far) this year, and not far below the highest price for the year. With higher than average trading volumes, there obviously hasn't been too much profit taking. Hopefully Goldman Sachs new target price of 675 is both realistic and will be achieved quite soon. That being the case, and with the pound strengthening slightly against the dollar, my question at the end of last week (Scrip or Cash?) has been answered (for me) - the decision has been made, and I look forward to receiving a few more shares in early December, which will qualify for any fourth interim dividend payable in early April next year. With a further buyback today of over 4.8 million shares, good progress is being made. Let's hope the rest of the week/month/year continues well. Steve
Sometimes it is an easy decision, especially like earlier in the year when the share price was low, and the returns are already quite good. This time the scrip price is considerably higher, but the exchange rate is very good., and the decision always needs to be made before the cash dividend exchange rate is declared! It is also possible to take a mixture of shares and cash, which may be something worth considering. At least with scrip dividends there are no dealing costs (to buy) - just the opportunity cost of forgoing that amount of cash!!! I see that Goldman Sachs have been busy recently - the buybacks since the end of October are over 40 million shares costing over £250 million, which probably means that around 70% of the target has now been reached. London trading volumes have been fairly high again this week, and although there is no precise correlation between total shares traded and the buyback figure on any given day, there is a clear pattern - the more shares traded, the greater the volume (and amount) of buybacks - appears to be around 9% (on average) since the buyback commenced. This investor hasn't sold up, and has no intention of doing so, but I see little point in making numerous posts each day. Have a good weekend all, Steve
We must all be thankful for a favourable market reaction to the mediocre 3rd quarter results. Hopefully the US election result will not derail the upsurge in the FTSE 100 or HSBC share price. It is certainly good to see that the recovery today has almost compensated for the gradual reduction in share price last week, despite the buyback of over 16 million shares in the first four days of November. I see that the total (London) trading volume was fairly high today (over 55 million shares), including a further buyback of over 5 million, which brings the total to more than 210 million. We would all love to see 650p (or more) within the next couple of weeks, and further increases in due course, and it would be great if there was real (pleasant) significance in the closeness of the final results and ex-dividend date, but time will tell.... Steve
For some while now, I have taken a "snap-shot" of month-end totals, including the HSBC share price on the last working (stock market) day of each month. I really did wonder what was happening in the early part of the year, when the share price fell to 433.90p at the end of March, but it has now not only recovered well, but also moved into good positive territory - the biggest gain being in August - once the buyback had started:- December 2015 - 536.20; January 2016 - 492.30; February 2016 - 459.65; March 2016 - 433.90; April 2016 - 452.50; May 2016 - 445.05; June 2016 - 465.90; July 2016 - 495.10; August 2016 - 564.30; September 2016 - 578.70; October 2016 - 616.20. Let's hope this upward progression continues - not only to the end of this year, but also during the early part of 2017. I will be "off the radar" for most of this week, but expect to be around for the 3rd quarter update next Monday. Steve
I suppose for some it must have felt like "the morning after the night before" as the share price dipped by more than 10p, but it has recovered well, ending just 3p lower, which is still slightly above the new scrip price. We must expect to see fluctuations in the share price, and there is bound to be some (further) "profit-taking" as (hopefully) the share price increases. At least there has been consistency during the last three weeks - the share price has continued to trade above £6 since the 5th October. I would really like to see 650p (or more) by the end of November, but none of us knows what lies ajead - I hope it won't be necessary, SUF, but I trust you had a hat made from edible rice paper - just in case!!! I see that today's buyback has been almost another 4 million shares, so perhaps by the end of next week the total will be about 200 million. The share price has dipped slightly since the official market close, so next week will be interesting as we head towards the 3rd quarter update on the 7th November. Have a good weekend ALL and make the most of the extra hour as we move from BST to GMT. Steve
We have a really good exchange rate for the scrip dividend - by far the best during the fifteen years I have been a shareholder of HSBC; The share price closed at a new high for the year to date - and hopefully it will keep rising; Let's hope there is more good news in the 3rd quarter update, and even better news when the year-end results are announced; There is now a select band of party-goers - some have clearly not been invited, because they cashed in (too) early and so have already had their own "leaving do"!!! Steve
Thanks for your kind comments SUF. I see the scrip dividend dollar price announcement has now been made - $7.6227, confirming the sterling price of £624.20 - that equates to 1.2212 dollars to the pound. I think HSBC could also stand for "Has Saved Buster's Christmas" and "He Seeks Big Caravan" :-) Steve