Member Info for LordAdam

117+4.8p = 121.8p ... your estimate of the SP prior to the exDiv date doesn't seem reasonable to me ... plus it would need 2p per day rise each day and no dips to reach that in 6-7 trading days. I'm not saying that it won't be 130 ... it would be nice if it were ... but without some other supporting news or general market rise I can't see it getting there by the 14th myself. Mike

I don't have the confidence to add here either ... despite the speculation the share price is no higher than when I got out and the level of shorting is still higher than that which triggered my exit ... not time for me to get back in yet I'm afraid. It may have some short term gains to come but on a long term income yield basis its not one for me -- yet. Mike

Whilst the 5% rise is very welcome, possibly based on speculation ... the increasing level of shorting is not ... up to 8.29% now from the 2.5% that existed at the start of the year. Prior to Mid-16 there was virtually no shorting activity here. To put it into perspective there's been 200m pounds worth of shares shorted so far. That's a lot of equity which ever way you look at it. I can't help but think that there is a significant chunk of the market that has significant questions about ISAT ... and don't see a knight in shining armour on the horizon. Mike

Details ... the devil is always in them ... and it's the details you have to keep an eye on. 16:35 ... market closed ... time of the automated closing sequence auction ... doesn't look like a normal trade. Let's go fishing and take a look ... yes, trade #8807 8807 482.9 33546266 UT 483.7 484.3 16:35:18 Yep its the close of day auction between market makers -- that's what the UT effectively means -- so its stock moving between market makers to balance their books and not stock being sold/bought by real folk. At the end of a busy day a MM needed to close out their position and that's what this was. Other than the broadest indications of the volume there's not much we can conclude from this until we see the actual trade(s) behind it. Moral of the story ... be very careful of the 16:35 trades !! Mike

Actually given the lack of liquidity in TRAK I thought the opening was a little muted for the excellent results but am not surprised. Small cap AIM shares are the last in the line to have their news analyzed by the larger funds etc particularly on Monday morning when there is news and events of the weekend for the bigger companies taking precedence. So what we are seeing this morning is mostly PI's getting in/out and most of us guys/gals are long term holders. There's evidence of some trading on the basis of the old adage of buying on the rumour selling on the news but once the bigger buyers start then this share has only one option (again due to the liquidity) and that's to rise substantially. Normally its a couple of days before the bigger players start reacting/commenting on the news. Let's see what the next few days bring ... one things for sure ... the results point to an increasingly attractive investment here. Mike

Well I didn't get 1165 but I did manage 1172 for a decent sized addition to the portfolio. For the new acquisitions it's a wait until Feb/Mar for an estimated 2.8% yield on the interim (8.2% over the year of course). GLA Mike

As you say an up-tick on Wednesday as automatic dividend reinvestments take place is to be expected. The cynic in me thinks that the market makers anticipate this coming and go heavy then mark up the price and shift their stock, but then of course, they wouldn't do that would they, after all its a free and perfect market? The wise amongst us, with the equivalent cash on hand, might like to buy Mon/Tue, repay themselves with the dividend and get a better price. Mike

Sorry to say that I bottled out today and sold our holdings in ISAT (ISA and non-ISA) at the 495 level. We're long-term high yield portfolio type investors and bought into these at about the 600-620 level for the long-term consistent dividend yield. At the time they looked to have been undervalued by the market and the expectation was for a recovery in the share price (not that we were interested in that) and a continuation of the dividend payments (even a bit of growth maybe). Sadly I'm not so convinced any more of the story ... todays increase in the shorting position as Jane Street Group crossed the 0.5% reporting threshold and the recent passing of the 20% capital loss level were the final trigger points together with the weakening sentiment in favour of the share. My worst fear is that this will be a rerun of the Carillion debacle and further down the line we'll have a confessional session of RNS's revealing that the board haven't actually been that straighforward, the dividend abandoned and a refinancing/pruning operation undertaken. I'll continue to lurk/monitor here to see what happens ... I hope I'm wrong! Good luck everyone, and thanks for all the great informational and discussion posts! Mike

Nice big juicy contract win announced in the RNS this morning ...

I'd be looking to top up too at 102-104 ... but my glass is already full to overflowing. My daughter though is waiting to get into these and her price target for buying is 105 so she may lucky yet. Mike

Golly, I'd forgotten about that post ... As you say, if the market makers had supplied a large buy order (say 100K) they could keep it under wraps for a couple of days, go short and try to replenish their book by raising the price slowly to encourage sellers out of the woodwork. If they get it right they make a good profit ... if not then they have to set the price ever higher as the posting deadline approaches. One thing in their favour is that these delayed heavy weight postings are usually made after hours and don't impact the market against them as they would in normal hours. Mike

Sell up and go ... or sit on what you've got? I suppose it depends on the reason that you came here in the first place. Mine was as an element of a high yield portfolio. The lack of the special was a disappointment some time back, but the buy back (which reduced the share total by 3%) has automagically enabled the board to be confident in stating that the announced dividend will keep pace with RPI (even though the total amount of cash distributed remains more or less constant!). At the moment I'm sitting on a capital loss but have a reasonable income stream from this share. I think overall the market will take a dim view of both the results and the new business merger proposal ... there'll be a split and the income stream for SSE will go down in absolute terms ... the new venture is a distinct unknown and if I'm still around when it happens I'll probably sell out on those. Long term I don't see this BoD doing well except for themselves ... if it wasn't for the income for the next 12-18 months I'd be out now. From my own perspective I should perhaps consider topping up when we hit the bottom of the dip and getting out in the future after a bit of capital gain and some income. Tough one to call ... any thoughts anyone? Mike

Overall a not very inspiring set of results and the 3% of the dividend increase was created from buying back shares using the money that should have been distributed to us directly by a special dividend. 0.8% dividend growth in this environment is effectively zero. The hiving off of the domestic business seems a dubious move at best. I'm not impressed ... I wasn't impressed by the buy back that helped guarantee executive bonuses and I'm not impressed by this performance either. I'm an income investor so I'll stay here for the present dividend (effectively flat) but will be monitoring the situation closely to see if its time to exit. Mike

A 2-3% uptick for this sort of news/announcement is really rather small ... unless there's a major movement at the bell tomorrow I think you can tell what the big players in the market think of the situation. If there's no big movement then either they think it will get referred and put on ice ... or that there's no real synergy/gain in it for the long term. Mike

This share price is acting in a rather strange way ... effectively LRE are market limited, they can't generate a vast increase in profits or profitability as they are tied to what they underwrite ... so a declaration of no major capital return (profit) for the year (ie no special) should devalue the SP considerably. Yet it not only holds up it increases ... me thinks there's something else going on in the background ... Does any one know of any merger or acquisition rumours that are going around for LRE? Mike

>Daytrade ... sorry, your maths is not right ... if annual dividend is �1.50 and current share price is �24 ...the scrip will issue one new share instead of paying the annual dividend on 16 existing shares. Then for each subsequent year (excluding growth) a further �1.50 will be paid out -- the simple break even/pay back period is 16 years. Effectively the scrip dividend is the cheapest form of debt that Shell have access to. In reality it's a form of printing its own money. >General ... buy backs are bad news for small investors, even worse when they use the surplus cash in the company to artificially increase EPS and improve/guarantee executive bonuses rather than return it directly to share holders via a special dividend or an increase in normal dividends. They take the certainty of cash in the bank and swap it for the whim of the market place. To me the message is clear, the company should reinvest/utilize the money to grow the company or pay it out via the dividend route. Mike

Are we talking about the same Scip Dividend here? The one where they give the option to shareholders to receive their dividend in the form of shares rather than cash? If so then scrapping the scheme is not a great idea. Every share issued under the scheme saves the company the equivalent share price in dividends. It gets to keep that cash rather than pay it out and all it costs is the virtual printing of a share certificate or two. As for the next statement .... scrapping the 6% dividend yield ... that can only happen in one way ... by cutting or cancelling the dividend and that's not going to happen. So overall I'm not impressed by the level of insight shown by the Barclays issuance. Mike

Me too ... I'm income driven and was in here for the long term income flow which has done me very nicely over the years (18% pa overall). With the removal of the special and the ominous shift in words to using surplus capital in other ways I decided to get out and go somewhere else. Without the special this yields 1.5% and its easy to find 6%+ else where. What has really puzzled me is the way the share price has held up ... looks very suspicious to me ... there was some steady buying up to the results and I get the impression that the institutions are moping up shares. So what do the big guys know that they're not sharing with us little folk in the playground? Mike

Me too ... I'm income driven and was in here for the long term income flow which has done me very nicely over the years (18% pa overall). With the removal of the special and the ominous shift in words to using surplus capital in other ways I decided to get out and go somewhere else. Without the special this yields 1.5% and its easy to find 6%+ else where. What has really puzzled me is the way the share price has held up ... looks very suspicious to me ... there was some steady buying up to the results and I get the impression that the institutions are moping up shares. So what do the big guys know that they're not sharing with us little folk in the playground? Mike

The circumstance of this particular buy back means that the share price will be at best unaffected. The money that is being used to do the buy back is actually money that was raised by issuing loan notes which were then converted into shares which are now being bought back. ie there's should be no net change in the company's capital position. However, when the loan notes were issued JPM ended up with half of them and they are effectively calling in their debt by converting the notes and then having the company buy them back. So rather than underpin the SP this buy back ... which is removing capital from the company ... may cause it to deteriorate as more and more folk work out what is actually going on. As for the dividend, again by removing capital it decreases dividend cover (from a reserves point of view) and makes maintenance of the dividend more difficult. As to strong buy/sell that's for everyone to make up their mind ... personally I don't like the way in which JPM were dealt into this complex web of debt/payback. Mike