Member Info for LWHL

The JPM earnings beat perhaps? Feeding the soft landing/no recession narrative IMO.

Not that I buy that narrative personally, but I could be wrong.

And regardless, happy enough to see some of my risk on equities spike upwards. Especially those that I am close to taking profits on!

I thought you were being a bit too optimistic, Mikey, but who knows? Plenty of the day left yet.

I decided in early trading that 65p looked like it might be quite strong resistance today, so got out short of that and thus slightly before my original target.

Keeping an eye on it still though, as I might be tempted to take another small trade at some point. Feels a little dangerous right now though, IMO. GLA.

Indeed. I think there is a general consensus here that some changes probably need to happen at the top, sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile, I took a second trading tranche yesterday at sub 60p, which I have now offloaded, along with the first trading tranche. Only a couple of hundred quid net profit between the two, so hardly Bobby Axelrod (!) but it takes the sting out of that update slightly and makes one feel fractionally less annoyed that the LTH pot is currently so underwater!

Hopefully we are making good progress on the CEO hunt.

Just seen that we have a disclosed short, registered a couple of days ago.

Might explain some of the SP action of late.

Hope they have got this one wrong! GLA.

Who knows what was truth, or whether investors were deliberately misled at any point?

Probably will never know the answer to that, but regardless, it is clear that the BOD here have utterly failed.

Even allowing for those cited client payment issues etc, some of the business decisions taken since before even the first interest rate hikes have been extremely poor.

What a mess and what a shame. GLA.

Nothing that will be seen by shareholders I would imagine.

I had hoped that somehow this one would work out for you all, even though I sold up my final tranche fairly recently (as good as a total wipe out that final one was, anyway).

Hope you are doing OK Dallo? I guess your loss here was probably the biggest of us all, but I am sure your other investments will continue to provide you with profits that will dwarf this loss. Not that a big loss is ever easy to dismiss of course.

GLA and I hope this result does not make anyone's lives too difficult.

Fair point. We can but hope they do not mess that up :)

I agree with much of your comment, Pokerchips, except about the BOD not buying shares right now.

They absolutely should - and a lot too!

IMO the markets will look far less kindly on this company if they just sit on their hands.

Big purchases will not in itself move the dial significantly on the SP I agree, but that would not be the objective.

Evidence of alignment with shareholders and confidence in their own abilities to turn things around fairly quickly, is IMO the message that such actions would help to provide.

Anyway, we will see whether any do, or do not, within a couple of days at most I suspect.

I am hoping to see such an RNS later today, quite frankly!

In that case, I think a bid of 150p would succeed. Especially with the dividend gone, as HorisM points out, nobody is now getting paid to wait. And the big holders might be happy to take some profit/small losses and move on.

The next few weeks are going to be interesting here I think. GLA.

Hopefully.

Does anybody have an idea of what the approximate averages of the main shareholders here might be?

It would be interesting to see what the reaction might be to an offer in the region of 150p for example.

Yes, I appreciate that would be a low ball offer in the minds of LTH's here with higher averages than that, but in the cold light of day, in a market like this one, I think it might prove challenging for the BOD to fight it. Especially if they fail to buy heavily themselves today.

Right now, nobody is going to offer 2 billion quid, let alone 3, IMO.

It will be interesting to see if any offers do appear in the next week or so though.

I hope the BOD do not sit on any that they deem sub-optimal, like a few other outfits have done previously.

Yes, very well reasoned post, Xenor. I have added to the many recommends that you got for it :)

I was not able to get any sub 60p, but took a small amount for that side pot trade nevertheless.

We might get a retest of high 50's later in the day and if so, I might nibble a few more then, but looking for high 60's, maybe very early 70's, for this particular position.

I think that should be a fairly conservative short term target....which probably means you should all sell up and run for the hills :) GLA.

Long term, yes, I think this will bounce back.

But to reinstate the dividend, only to have to cancel it again so soon, is a bad reflection on the BOD.

Even though it was the correct decision.

I think if they do not buy heavily today or tomorrow, then some of the major shareholders might consider whether some changes need to be made to freshen things up a bit. Maybe regardless.

IMO, if the next update does not show some material improvements, then I would support a change of leadership here.

So, I am leaving my small core holding here, because I have no time restraints on it (fortunately!) but am pondering taking another side pot trade. GLA.

Fair enough. My point I guess is that the stakes are simply higher - far higher - in this case. Hence IMO 'security' in this case means security. But we shall see. And the reason I keep adding those disclaimers is because I really do not want to risk leading anyone into taking or adding to a position off the back of my bullish sentiments.

I am personally very bullish here (obviously), but like you, have been wrong before and would hate to influence someone else's decision in either direction.

Anyway, as Scaffman says, we will indeed be wiser in 6 months time :) GLA.

Absolutely nothing is certain of course, but you simply cannot compare this company to Carillion. No geopolitics in that one, for a start. A lot of other specific factors and differences too, which we will not go into on this chat board.

I know nothing of Camell Laird so cannot comment on that name.

But you are completely right to rule nothing out. The bull or bear case here will win sooner or later. And it will be a binary scenario.

First thing that Carney has said that is sensible IMO.

Shame he did not apply similar logic when governing the BoE. Many of the economic problems that we are experiencing today lay at his door. That he is cheer leading Rachel Reeves should cause worry to those with critical thinking skills IMO. She of course is ex BoE too. Which makes me think of Joseph Heller's Catch-22 novel...

But that is a slight derail, so my apologies.

Seeing some of those delayed prints, I am finding the price action here unlike any other stock that I think I can remember being a holder of.

Not complaining of course, because it makes my paper loss far smaller, and my initial purchase look far less childish!

But I admit to being totally baffled right now.

Anyway, happy to continue being baffled, if the SP continues to behave in such a fashion.

Something a bit different anyway.

You make some fair points, Xenor. Not least the fact that some money will indeed be waiting for finance confirmation before joining us. Big money usually takes this approach and who are we to dispute their strategy?

However, given you are confident that a deal will be reached, why worry?

Unless you have too much invested here, in which case, take some off the table. Even if it means eating a loss. If it is causing you distress, it is simply not worth it.

As to your point about shorts: there are not 13% of shares in issue here that are being shorted. Maybe of those who use whatever trading platform you do, but not 'proper' shorts (see short tracker, although there are other avenues to this end, I believe). If 13% of the company shares were being shorted, we would be at the top of the short tracker list.

Anyway, I took another baby tranche the other day. But while my entire holding here would sting if it went to zero, it would not materially change my life. I hope the same applies to all other holders here - and the rest of the stock market, for that matter.

IMO, given the amount of serious mainstream news coverage....the senior politicians who have visited and mentioned us by name....not just government ministers, but shadow politicians, senior US politicians, EU politicians....given the IM verdict recently, which I said prior to the verdict I foresaw a pragmatic decision being reached...I remain very confident of the direction of travel here.

But, for the millionth occasion, time will tell. Nothing in life is certain, apart from the obvious :) GLA.

That is the right strategy for this type of outfit, IMO.

As long as they keep a firm grip on costs, continue to drive down the debt pile and keep a healthy balance sheet, then I see this name still going strong, years into the future.

Certainly hope so anyway!

Seeing as we seem to have no technicians on this thread, my plan is to add more if we break that level I mentioned earlier, probably the mid 120's, and then if the proverbial really hits the fan, macro-wise, low 100's.

But that is predicated on nothing company-specific arising, naturally. A further dampening of numbers, in line with the sector etc, I am ready for and can live with, should it come to pass.

And of course, I could be wrong and am being too bearish, perhaps. Fingers crossed that is the case. GLA.