Member Info for MattTheBrave

Makes you wonder if he knew something about the HMRC contract announced today? Nice fillip to the share price anyway!!

Thanks. There's plenty of risk swirling around this one, but you don't get bargains in quality companies without it. I've had similar experiences in Barclays, L&G, Glencore (all this year) Supergroup and even Microfocus back in the day - (and look at their results today!!). Fallen angel investing will always give you some duffers (Serco a good example), but more often than not, you make money in my experience. Remember what the great man said: Be fearful when others are greedy ..[and vice versa]

Yes indeed. Not sure what I'm more excited about- the fact that it's only on 14x this years' earnings again, or the massive increase in the divvy!!! Going up today, my 6 month target now £28.

Thanks Mayfield. Yes I realise I was talking ebitda - it was about the percentage changes I was looking at. However, your explanation is clear and you've clearly done your homework. Agree on E2V - I had more in that than NCC, so that was a lovely Xmas present!! As they say, better to be lucky than good!!

....buys £250k. Doesn't hurt.

Great post Mayfield, which picks up all the main points, and on which I agree to your main arguments. Only issue - I'm not quite sure about your PBT numbers. You either downgraded on the first statement, and were proved right, or downgrade now. My take was that EBITDA was expected to be about 50m and now it's 45 to 47 (which is still a small amount of growth). Anyway, I think what gives me comfort here is the stock price which I think really is discounting all 4 of the negatives you raise. Given the revenue growth, it seems very unlikely that 2017/18 won't be a strong profits year, and when (and if..)the market begins to factor that in, you should see a decent rise from here IMO.

...to be expected after the run we've just had!!

...very unlikely. It's a cash bid, they already had the support of the Board and around 40% of the shares, and presumably bought a bunch more in the market yesterday. I took my money out yesterday giving me lots of lovely capital to find my next winner (...or dog!) ;-)

...anything in the works I wonder???

Yes agree with all that CM. Pleasure mixed with a tinge of sadness definitely the order of the day!!

Well Jargonpain, I have to congratulate you on the post below. Great in-price, and a spot-on call regarding a US based acquisition. Last month has been very painful in this stock, but what a lovely Xmas present today!! Won't be the last US acquisition in this sector I feel given the exchange rate!

Kabaa - no, he's not. An neither are you.

Alright Dubs, don't rub it in. Some of us just have t be content with 10 baggers you know!!!!! ;-)

I'd be surprised if Diggedy was actually short, but certainly over cautious IMO. Respectfully, I believe his understanding of leverage is misguided (actually talked about having to place £250 or £500 of margin for each pound of exposure - clearly wrong), but also, I think his argument below is incorrect. Just because people don't have to put up as much margin today with IG for each position, doesn't mean they don't have it. Quite simply, people will have to put more of their wealth in IG to play rather than hold it outside. Will this stop some people trading - s few, but not as many as you think. Are there people out there who bet way more than they could afford and lost? Yes, but many of them simply became bad debts which IG wrote off anyway - they'll be a lot less of that now so IG's business has actually become less risky. Overall , will this cause a negative effect on revenue - yes. Will it be enough to actually make revenue growth go negative (ie overhaul the current double digit growth) - debatable. Does it justify a 40% fall in the share price - a strong no IMO, and that's why I picked some up at 489p yesterday.

In a word - no.

Crikey, where is everyone? Hellooooooooo...?

...to the latest news. I read it as : the business is still very challenging, but we've had a windfall effect from the weakness in the pound. Struggling to work out why this pushes the stock up to this extent. if I held it, I'd sell here.....

...bit more like it!

All relevant fears Lindon, but in truth, you just don't get good in prices in stocks like this without risk and uncertainty. I think we can all agree that the long term outlook for the industry is strong, and that NCC is a major player. I would also contend that the management is pretty solid. I believe that the FD is working his notice as well, so feels like something more personal than business? Taken as a whole, I think this is more of an opportunity than an avoid, but of course, predicting the future is always tricky!!

So no view as to the efficacy of the compounds then? Realize that it's just a bunch of very technical data, but thought I'd ask. We'll await the RNS when hopefully we'll get it in English...!!