Member Info for Marcus_

This SP is not as linked to the price of oil as it once was.

I'm out of this share at the moment as I could not stomach the constant cuts in SP as potential business is hampered by the inertia of the SFO.

For what it's worth I'm not sure when PFC could cut a deal but for shareholders whether guilty or innocent the punishment had been severe.

Even a clean bill of health and no fine would probably only see this recover to the low hundreds.

Basically the damage has been done its just a question of how much more, either way the damage to the business and to its employees seems to be far worse than any crime they were accused of.

News coverage is nice but will the value of the contract shift the dial on this share?

Unlikely is my view. The split of the business is one of the major impacts at the moment on this SP.

Having said that I'm happy with my buy in price and the dividend is still a great reason to buy. It's a nice stable income generator

Hi all,

Late to the party, but if you are investing low amounts there are other brokers out there who charge zero fees.

I'm looking at Freetrade as an example.

There is an fx cost but if you are investing in UK shares from what I can see this would not apply.

Although a word of caution as if they are not charging fees it may be that you get poorer bid /offer prices or it may be that the trade is less instant so you don't get the price you thought you would.

I've not tried it myself yet, but I am curious and may give it a whirl with small trades to see how it works.

But poker it is worth stating BP and shell are not good indicators for this company.

I lost as much in pfc as I gained in shell over the last few months.

For me I think she'll will be my only oil investment, I like pfc but the SFO investigation is anightmare to predict

Well I'm out. I've made some money here but lost all my gains yesterday and today.

I hope I have made the wrong call, but I've never seen anything so hard hitting as this sfo investigation.

No charges but it has crippled a uk company, for me the punishment does not fit the crime.

It's not like they can pull a rabbit out of the hat. Any major new revenue streams would have had to be declared in RNS as a winning bid on a contract.

I'm expecting more of the same, tough trading environment, cost cutting continues and sfo investigations continue.

I agree it's a good news story, but how much profit will it give to the bottom line?

Also I get that gsk is unloved and a bit dull, but i guess it depends on what you are looking to gain by investing.

I'm not expecting exceptional growth as health care is a mature market with lots of competitors. So unless you are developing niche products that have mass demand you are unlikely to get massive growth.

So me this investment is to balance out more riskier investments.

If they grow then fab, if they don't then Gsk will hold value over the long term and provide a stead return.

If you want growth companies then you need smaller companies that are focused in new markets.

But its a wild west world and you can see all your money go very quickly.

I think the number one question is what will you do with any cash returned to you?

If there are better opportunities elsewhere then top slicing is a way of diversifying your portfolio when you have limited new capital to invest.

If you are top slicing to reduce the risk and hold cash or near cash assets due to being close to needing access to that cash (ie retirement) then again it makes sense.

But if top slicing just to then do nothing or worse make a rash investment elsewhere which turns bad, then there would be little point in top slicing.

For me I'll take some money when I see the potential upside as limited.

But can't put a price on that yet.

That article is also a good reminder that most assets 99% are tricky to make a profit on and only a few lead the market to new highs.

I'm unlikely to make a major share purchase in saga ever again.

My current holdings are at an average of about £2.65.

So if it hits those lows again something will have gone seriously wrong.

Just have to sit and wait and see how high it goes. I get the bored statement as doing nothing always seems less exciting than doing something.

Very much enjoying Shell at the moment.

A good dividend and very good capital growth from the lows of a few months back.

I still trade stocks but I tend to only do it with a portion of my investment.

That way if it takes off you get some gains, if it turns the losses are limited.

Slow down its a huge desire in lots of humans to try and exert control.

Just sitting back and letting things chaotically flow is weird to most.

Its why those who can be patient can sometimes benefit more than traders. Unless you have real training, skills and knowledge trading is a challenge to get right, but still most of us still do it

Jed you could sell to buy back lower. But I'd only do that if you have an alternative set of shares where you want to invest.

Because if it does not fall back what will you do with the cash.

Personally I'm now just going to hold until at least £5.

At that point I'll reassess the potential upsides and downsides.

But I really want to see the impact of when cruises restart as we will have some real world business metrics to judge the business on

Oh my bad stock picks far outweigh my successes.

Marconi went bust and I lost the lot.
Lloyds I always buy at the peak, just about breaking even.
Sold glencore at about 90p for it to go on a run weeks later and ended up at about £4.
Currently pfc is not being overly friendly.

@OracleofOldham

I think insurance had some resilance and they actually innovated with their 3 year deal which is unusual in the insurance market.

I think the resilance will wane with time as older generations become more and more price savey, but most people don't want to shop around (strange as it may seem) so there is some logic in offering longer deals for those who don't like the 12 month renewal game.

The travel and cruise division is where this company will sink or float. It requires huge capital outlay and therefore debt.

There are people who watch the figures better than me but basically full ships = lots of return on investment, empty ships and the debt drags down the whole company.

Which is why with no sailing the sp tanked. But like a mortgage as that debt reduces the ships become more and more profitable.

So at this stage you are betting on how much servicing the debt hits the bottom line. Once sailing restarts it will be about when returns on investment will increase and the debt become less of a factor.

But with multiple strings to its bow it is a resilient company with decent prospects at this level.

I'm 50% up and I did not get the bargain prices post consolidation. But at these levels you are still looking at a sp far less than it was 12 months ago, after we knew covid had hit the UK.

I know what you mean by no one knows what they are doing. But it is a few steps away from gambling,

Gambling in its truist form is completely random =toss of a coin
Some gambling takes some knowledge like form into account = sports gambling
Share trading is gambling with knowledge, not complete knowledge as otherwise it would be all science based. But there is some knowledge out there.

Revenues, cash flow, debt payments, covenants, bond sales, Company news, previous market caps for equivalent financial periods. Macroeconomic events, changes in customer trends.

All these can be used to help make an educational valuation.

The chartists also have their graphs and charts to help with patterns of buys and sells.

I think people see the rise and attribute it to optimism.

I see the other side, the fall was steeper and faster and held down longer due to over pessimism that the company would fail.

As news that comes out makes the failure less likely the pessimistic leave and more risk averse buyers step in.

The risk lovers where already here at the point of consolidation and just after. They too may be adding more risk even at these prices.

Don't forget if you bought your shares at anything more than 24p, this has not yet given a return on your capital.

So this price only takes you back to after the steep falls in Feb and March 2020.

You are looking at 600p for investors to be valuing the company at pre pandemic levels.

Interestingly when you view the charts they have not been adjusted on this site for the consolidation.

You would think they would have to backwards correct the chart otherwise some new investors could rashly make a decision without knowing about the history of the graph.

I know we all say DYOR, but I was surprised they had not changed it.

Profit ain't profit till its in your pocket.

I never did get to buy some more at lower prices but happy to let this ride for a couple of years and see where the recovery takes us.

But guessing the sp is a mugs game, so I will leave it as simple as the down side risk has reduced and the odds of defaults on loans lowered.

But still some way to go to be a growth company.

I agree long term these are a good buy, but life is never 100%. So no harm it taking a little profit when you can to give you that cushion should your best expectations not be fulfilled

I think the one lesson I have learned from this pandemic is that you can't predict its length or its impacts.

There were many who thought it was all over by the summer, but the science had long predicted a winter spike.

I think May is not an unreasonable guess for the UK to start recovering, but travel is a 2 way street and with Europe behind on its vacinne programme this is going to hamper many travel operators.

The rest of the world seem to be fairly tight on their boarder policy so my guess is that high volumes of travel are not likely to return this year as you need somewhere to travel too.

Similar to 2020, I would expect a rush for travel corridors come the end of the season, when vacinnes kick in world wide and governments see a lower risk environment to start building their tourism economies.

I know some where hoping for £4 this month, but its never a straight line to your target price.

I'd rather a few small ups and downs than a big drop as investors expectations are suddenly dashed on results day.

I have a long term hold here so as not to miss out on any eventual recovery, but trading wise I am buying below 250, selling at 285+