Member Info for LordAdam

Velo ... looks like you are spot on the money to me ... yep, last Friday's trade was marked UT and it was within 5 seconds of 16:35. A spot of rummaging in Google ... and it's tricky as "sets auction" brings up a whole pile of unintended results ... but here's an excellent article (although detailed) about the SETS system: http://stockmarketlevel2.com/a-guide-to-level-2-SETS.html Thanks for pointing me in the right direction! Mike

It was a general question really ... although I asked it here in the Trak forum as I value the discussion here -- it being more considered and level headed than on some other boards! I'm not too worried about Trakm8 itself ... instinctively I understand the company and how it works in relation to the AIM market and I'm also reasonably familiar with low-cap, low-volume, thinly traded stocks ... like you say for Trak there's no real prospect of a dividend for a number of years -- and that's how it should be. In the absence of news/results the price tends to drift lower but then will be quickly restored on interest. Interestingly these small companies tend to weather bear markets rather well ... they are often the last to turn down and then often by a smaller degree ... No, I was really asking about the rest of the portfolio ... the mining section has taken a beating, the dividend rate is there, but the capital side is decreasing faster than the divi can support ... the oil section is similar but possibly not so long term and not so linked with China ... But what is more concerning is that the wobbles in the market now seem to be spreading to other sectors, the general market so to speak ... look at yesterday's fall (Tues) -- basically global in effect and the same amount around the global. What really surprised me was the uptick this morning, after the US being down and Asia being down again I was convinced we were in for another 1-2% worth of red ink. I just can't suss this market at the moment and that makes me nervous. Bit of background ... I used to be very active in the market during the 80's and 90's ... then sold the lot just after 9/11 as we had to move and buy another house (couldn't sell the old one and am still letting it!) ... and am now active in the market again since April (bad timing or what!) to build a retirement fund. The market is definitely a different place to what it was in the 80's and 90's ... remember the big-bang and all that? ... and I still haven't got my eye in properly! Mike

It would help me a great deal if folk could let me know whether they think we are in a bear market at the moment or not. I'm trying to decide if I should be raising cash or not, and if so what percentage etc. Trouble is I've been out of the market since 2001 until April this year so I haven't really got my eye in yet for this sort of thing. What's bugging me is whether we are in a bear market or just in a short term correction ... and how low this thing is likely to go and over what time scale. Mike

It would help me a great deal if folk could let me know whether they think we are in a bear market at the moment or not. I'm trying to decide if I should be raising cash or not, and if so what percentage etc. Trouble is I've been out of the market since 2001 until April this year so I haven't really got my eye in yet for this sort of thing. What's bugging me is whether we are in a bear market or just in a short term correction ... and how low this thing is likely to go and over what time scale. Mike

It would help me enormously if folk could let me know whether they think we are in a bear market at the moment or not. I'm trying to decide if I should be raising cash or not, and if so what percentage etc. Trouble is I've been out of the market since 2001 until this year so I haven't really got my eye in yet for this sort of thing. I guess what's bugging me is whether we are in a bear market or just in a short term correction ... and how low this thing is likely to go and over what time scale. Mike

I did decide to cash in ... and sold our two holdings one in each ISA that the pair of us had. Despite manoeuvring as best I could I only managed a tad over 656 which means I'm gambling on getting better than 4% annual rate of return on the money compared to waiting for the 670 in March. The other lingering doubt that I've had is that the offer is not in place yet ... there's a few stages to go through before its finalised and if there is a significant downturn in the market the number on the actual paper might be adjusted down from 670. So to remove uncertainty and lock in the profit I've gone to cash on this one this afternoon. I'll continue to monitor the board for a while, if just to see how things play out. Good luck every one. Mike

It's actually more direct than that ... provided the offer goes ahead ... the company that is taking over, MSI, will redeem your shares for £6.70. It's not actually a sale but rather a specific chunk of cash that the company gives to the holder when it cancels the share. As such it has no dealing costs and under normal circumstances the money should arrive in your brokerage account in full. It should be bullet proof ... but it relies on the offer proceeding to a conclusion and at the price mentioned previously. As you've probably seen the market is in a bearish mood at the moment ... and if it were to collapse significantly then the price on offer might be varied, or the sale could be cancelled. So as they say ... its not over yet. It's a tricky one ... I was going to hold until the end of the month and then sell, just in case a counter claim came forward, but I am seriously considering taking the 655-656 that is on offer at the moment and banking it. Mike

Market is very thin and the spreads are large again ... just seen this trade go through ... 4292 shares at 188.0 the offer/bid quotes for the time were 190.0-195.0 ... so I'm guessing this was a sale and the broker took 188 when the market was offering 190. Doesn't sound like much but its £85 in about £8000 ... seems like some folk don't get a good deal/service. Anyway generally the market is *very* thin, 40-50,000 shares in a day with a big spread and large swings ... twas ever thus ... so its not surprising that the mid-price is in the low 190's again ... I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't going to have a go at shaking the tree again. Mike

About five minutes after the bell closed on Friday someone traded 1.4 million shares (about 12 million pounds worth) ... looks like it was a sale -- but to be honest with these really big trades they are usually at a negotiated price and it could be a buy or it could be a sale. Has anyone any idea of what's going on ? ... I'm a bit suspicious about the timing ... Friday evening *after* the market has closed? I wonder if we're going to see an RNS notice first thing Monday morning? Mike

I agree ... It's interesting that the actual interim results are not really that bad ... the numbers are fairly reasonable ... and there would have been sufficient cash flow to cover the small interim dividend that is due shortly. Without the profit warning in July and with the dividend held all this unpleasantness could have been avoided or at least postponed until the final results were in. But now the sentiment in the share has been seriously damaged, mostly by what the directors have said themselves, and it's going to take a long time for the share price to recover even when the numbers start to add up in the business itself. It's not been helped by the board going into gory detail about how it's playing musical chairs to cover for the CEO ... Yes its a £400 million pound company ... but a few weeks ago it was a £800 million pound company ... and it does generate enough cash to pay its bills ... but its rate of return to investors has just been halved and it's hard to see this board making a super-hero type recovery anytime soon. Like you I think this is going to either languish until late next year at the best ... or maybe it will be the subject of a takeover bid. Goodness knows the board have halved the capital cost to a potential bidder and devalued the future value of its shares ... It might be worth a small holding in a few weeks for the possibility of a takeover, but I wouldn't buy this for its recovery potential and not for the yield at this stage. Mike

Hindsight is great ... usually 20/20 ... and it's hard to lose on the replay. I don't usually trade on the short-term ... done it 2-3 times in the last 6 months and managed to get away with it, so I'm not going to trust to my luck too often. Two of the three occasions were necessities that paid off, this one included, the other one was to mitigate some loses that a limit order saved me from. Lets settle down now to the usual thin market and big spreads in a steady run up (towards 220+) to the end of the calendar year. Mike

So, over 10,000,000 shares traded on the day of the results ... and there's no clear winner, the buyers and the sellers are fairly evenly matched. That's way more than on the day of the profit warning at the back end of July. Clearly there's just as many folk (and big players/institutions) see this as an opportunity as a warning call. To be honest only the next few days/weeks will show what the the reality is. On a personal level I'm waiting to see what happens ... the road to financial recovery could be slow and long ... but the road to a potential take over could be relatively short now. The board have cut the dividend more or less in half and their actions preceded a massive reduction in the share price in July and the results led onto today’s further drop (the two could have been combined for a single drop) ... and they've declared their internal manoeuvres as regards the CEO/CFO positions. We shall see what the market makes of the next few days ... Mike

Yes, more buying than selling ... was just looking at the trade lists to see how much more when I say two BIG buy orders of 1.25 million each (3 million total) go through at 114. At this level there's a lot of support for the share ... unlike July 29th when we had the same volume (perhaps less) and almost no support. The numbers in the accounts are not bad, there's cash being generated and they probably could have kept the Dividend (at least this time around). But the overall news is that they wanted to rebase to a 1.5 to 2.0 cover for the dividend and that means cutting it back to what they did. And that in turns means I'm not going to hold it in my high yield portfolio. But it doesn't mean to say that I won't be watching it closely ... there's a lot of folk who are still interested in the company one way or another (me included). Mike

Yes, disappointed me too ... I decided to follow my own advice and get out -- what really did it for me was the dividend cut. With the divi only 50% of what it was, this share no longer fulfills the criteria that I need within my high yield portfolio and so the inevitable fall this morning just finished it off for me. A long time ago, back in the 90's, I was working in an office ... and in the next office along was a guy, my investment 'buddy'. The interesting things was that over a long period of time I consistently bought 'better' than he did, and he consistently sold 'better' than I did. I always got them cheaper and he always sold them for more. Recently I've seen that I'm still bad at getting out ... still good at getting in though! I just need to tighten up my resolve once I know I need to be out. Good luck ... I'll be watching how things go ... if I was into the recovery/takeover thing then I'd get back in within a couple of weeks of now. With the market capitalization as low as it is now, and the brand name of Farnell as strong as it ever was ... it will be an interesting time! Mike

So what do folk make of the results posted this morning? To me they don't seem to contain any surprises. Pretty much what I expected from the trading update that was posted just before the tumble. Given the great increase in the free cash flow I'm disappointed by the dividend cut ... Seems unnecessary and is bound to affect sentiment badly. Also the the restructuring of the board seems a little chaotic and until a new CEO is appointed a little without direction. What with the Akron Brass sale as well PLF is looking more like a takeover target than ever before. Pity is that I was in for the long term for the dividend stream! Mike

Thanks Graham for the updated URL to DividendMax ... certainly looks interesting, I'll be stopping by there over the next couple of days. It's a small world ... I was/still am into Amlin, was holding about 6K worth and was waiting for a good opportunity to increase to about the 18K level when the bid was announced. The profit is nice (looking at 43%+) but now I have to decide what to do with the money again as its a cash only bid. I liked the look of LRE, and pre-emptively have put £10K here ... the charts though are rather strange because of the enormous dividends and returns. The specials are the ones that do your head in and make predicting what is going to happen difficult. Watch out though for your idea of selling after the big Dividend in December ... the issue here is that the entitlement for the dividend will be if you hold the shares at the start of trading on the ex-dividend date (I'm guessing it will be 26 November its usually a Thursday). You can sell them on the 26th itself, but you must hold them at the start of trading on that day. If you look at the price charts you'll see a really big drop on that Thursday in 2014 to allow for the 76p dividend. The interesting thing is that the drop was *bigger* than the dividend entitlement itself, which prompts me to consider selling at the peak in October when the dividend is still included in the price. Anyway, good to be here ... we'll talk about the mechanics and the tactics as we get a bit closer. Mike

Have you folk been seeing the 8.3/8.5 forms that are going through on the RNS news feed? You know there's a hell of a lot of investment companies taking big positions in AML ... lots and lots ... just have a look at them ... I did think that it was funds just taking up an easy way of generating money from the guaranteed payment in the spring -- but I can't help wondering if the whispers in the industry are that this bid is going to be contested? Time will tell ... in the meantime I'm not converting my shares into cash just yet !! Mike

Yes its a done deal ... everyone on the share register at the effective date is given the 670. The shares are then 'delisted' from the exchange and can't be traded any more. Subsequently it is intended to re-register Amlin as a private limited company but you won't be given shares in that and they won't be traded on any public market. Note that this is a cash only bid ... unlike many takeovers and mergers there are no shares being offered ... there won't be a 'new' company. The company that is taking over AML already exists and you can buy/sell its shares, but it is not issuing any new shares to fund the deal. You can of course sell your Amlin shares now in the market place at about 655/6 or you can wait until the spring and receive 670 for each share that you own ... no dealing costs on that of course whereas there will be if you sell prior to that time. So its a case of sell now or wait to get the 670. The choice is dependant on how much you need the money, what doubts you have (if any) about the bid going through and what rate of return you can get on the money if you use it for something else in the meantime. Hope that helps. Mike

So now I'm fully back in again, but this time with all my holdings outside the ISA ... any capital gain that I make here (up to the allowance of course) won't get taxed and that will leave me with some more cash to generate income growth within the ISA itself. Interestingly, by playing a careful watching game I've ended up with approximately 200 more shares than I had before by optimizing the sell/buys. Mike

Final decision after pondering it for a short while away from the desk ... I should sell and move the money into some high yielding stock ... but there's no great hurry. This price is going to be rock steady (its locked to the 670 next spring) unless one of two things happens: 1. The offer collapses for some reason ... and that doesn't look likely 2. A rival bid comes in to top the 670 against the directors recommendation. I don't really see a rival bid but I'll give it until the end of the month before I do the sale -- I'd really kick myself if I got out now and someone did a dawn raid on Monday! Mike