Member Info for MikeM14

Dorfan, and others,
Today's disruption to this Lloyds board by "depopevent" appears now to have been reported. I suggest that people don't even engage with the perpetrator.
It appears to be the same source as "IQTest" yesterday, another "one-day wonder" (member since 10 Nov 2022) - both came from a board about "Tecan".
Over to the "mods" to fix all this.
Unfortunately a large amount of the Lloyds-relevant discussion threads appear to have now been removed in their entirety (eg about share buybacks - although after 500ish postings some may celebrate that removal!).
Mike.

Hi IP3LY,
Yes, Dunelm is due to go ex-div tomorrow (10 Nov), with the dividend being 26p payable on 5 Dec 2022, as per their Final Results here:-
https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/DNLM/preliminary-results-jkkih96adf2gx3j.html
They say that the dividend is subject to approval at their AGM, which is due to take place on 30 Nov:-
https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/DNLM/annual-report-and-accounts-and-notice-of-agm-lrnepf20z3lfm4y.html
All the best,
Mike.

Dorfan,
"how about it increases NI contributions for those in the 40% tax bracket from 2% to say 4%.". I can't particularly disagree. However, as NI seems to be treated more and more as another form of Income Tax, I still can't see why they don't just combine them (with appropriate tiering over the different income levels for the combined "product"). We've had the Office for Tax Simplification (or whatever it's called) going for so many years now, what have they actually simplified? Every tax with which I've had dealings (and I do have to do self-assessment as well as recently having had to be the Executor for an Estate) seems, if anything, to have got more, not less, complicated as the years have gone by.
Mike.

denby69,
I'm presuming your subject-line is meant to be sarcastic.
You say:-
"The pension lifetime allowance is set to be frozen for two more years, with a rise in line with prices delayed from 2025 to 2027".
Last time I looked, the lifetime allowance was £1,073,100. I suspect that this will be irrelevant to a very large majority of people. It only affects people with an occupational pension of more than about £50,000.
If you're complaining that the government finds that it needs to take more tax, what are *your* proposals for how it should address the national debt (and as you're making this party-political, as in the title of your posting, let's not forget that a sizeable proportion of the debt was run-up by the last Labour government during a time when there weren't issues such as the COVID pandemic and the war in Ukraine to contend with).
Mike.

OWLS,
You say to LTI:-
"So are you saying that a share buy back increases the share price ?".
I'm confident LTI will want to answer you himself, but in the meantime, I'd say no, a share buyback does not necessarily, by itself, increase the share price.
The share price is driven by "the market". The market is simply the totality of all market participants. A market participant is anyone who buys or sells (in this case) BP shares. I am a market participant, albeit in a very small way. As far as I know, you are a market participant. Big pension fund "X" is a market participant. The price of a share is the result of supply and demand. This, for a big company such as BP, is done by an electronic system that matches buyers and sellers. The market share price is a "constantly moving feast", for that very reason. If you watch the share price of BP on this "LSE" site you'll see that it changes almost all the time (during market hours). If I saw that BP was currently £4-90 and decided I wanted to buy some, let's say 100 shares, and put in a buy order, I doubt that the effect on the market price could be seen. If a million private investors like me all decided to buy 100 shares, all at about the same time, you'd probably see the share price go up slightly. Ditto if everyone decided to sell at about the same time, it would probably go down slightly.
Every market participant will be weighing-up various factors to make their decision to buy or sell. The existence of a share buyback programme would be one of those factors.
Companies are valued on the basis of their future profitability, but also to an extent on the strength (or otherwise) of the Balance Sheet. If it was widely estimated that BP was going to make £1 billion profit next year, then the EPS (Earnings Per Share) would be that £1 billion divided by the number of shares in existence. Similarly if BP's policy was to pay out 50% of its profits as dividends, then the dividend for each share would be £500 million divided by the number of shares. Therefore if you reduce the number of shares, by buying back *and cancelling* them, the EPS and Dividend per share could be higher. That could drive the share price to be higher (remembering though that it's "the market" that drives the share price).
However, what's also important to consider is the price at which the company buys back the shares. If they're bought back at a price below the NAV (Net Asset Value) per share, then by the time you've reduced the number of shares, the NAV per share will be increased. If they overpay, then the NAV per share will be reduced.
If the market price of BP was currently at about £4-90, and I heard from the announcements that BP was paying £10 per share to buy the shares back and cancel them, then (depending on the current NAV) I would probably be running a mile from buying any more!
I hope that that is of some help.
Mike.

Eightyeight88, okay thanks for explaining - and congrats on your recent big win!
I guess everyone's circumstances are different regarding the merits (or otherwise) of PBs vs for example a fixed-rate savings account, depending on their own tax situation, etc, and on how likely you think it is that NS&I interest rates will rise further in the short term. One thing's for sure - if you commit today to a 1-year fixed rate savings account paying 4% then if you're a 20% taxpayer you only need PBs to be at 3.20% to be equivalent, or at 2.40% if you're a 40% taxpayer, whereas the chance of your 4% increasing within the next year is zero!
ATB, Mike.

Eightyeight88, et al,
"so £50k x roughly 4% int =£2kpa before tax "
No - it's currently 2.20% (you can see a link to all their interest rates at the bottom of the NS&I homepage).
Looked at over the short term, some will have done better, and some will have done worse. I had zero this time (on the max number) so hopefully some of you will have done better than 2.20% in the latest draw to compensate.
Average per person on that interest rate, with £50k worth, should be between 3 and 4 £25 wins per month. But I don't want to spoil the fun!
Mike.

Hi big_CHENGUS,
You say:-
"Historically anything sub 1500p is a bargain for long term holders. Dividend isn't bad at 5-6%.".
I admire your enthusiasm, but would like to inject some realism.
I hope you're aware that SSE announced nearly a year ago that as part of its strategy it will be "re-basing" (ie lowering!) its dividend to 60p in year 23/24. See their RNS announcement of 17 Nov 2021, "Net Zero Acceleration Programme". To then still get a 6% yield the share price would have to fall to about £10. That factor has been discussed widely on this board over the last few months. Furthermore, we have the cloud on the horizon as to what will be the Government's final proposal regarding "reform of the energy market", with talk of energy price capping even for renewable generators, such as decoupling prices for renewable-generated electricity from gas prices. Then you have the increasing cost of servicing debts with the rises in interest rates. And you have uncertainty as to what will be the political priority regarding "green energy" vis-a-vis further investment in fossil fuels, with a government where one doesn't know who will be in place from one day to the next, as we have seen today!
All that said, I have had a holding in SSE for nearly 20 years, and it has been one of my best long-term share investments.
All the best, Mike.

Hi Johnnyboy26,
Your Stamp Duty figure is wrong. You've said £129-00, but at 0.5% it's actually £12-90.
There's another £110-plus saved!
All the best, Mike.

All,
Someone on the LLOY board has just said that ii has introduced live prices, and the "hiccup" maybe because of that.
I'm not sure whether that's the case - last time I looked at the prices in the relevant display I think it said that they were 15 minutes (or was it 20 minutes?) delayed, but I can't remember how long ago that was.
Anyway, glad if the problem's now fixed.
Mike.

meoryou,
"Onward and Upwards".
Indeed. There certainly seems to be a lot of "Upwards" so far today not only in BP but in the wider market. Let's hope that euphoria is there for a good reason and can be sustained (unless one was planning on buying shares today, of course...).
ATB, Mike.

spights, meoryou,
Yes, I was alarmed initially to see about a third of all value had gone from my portfolio. Looking at the "investments" view, all my holdings were still there, with the right number of shares in each, but the price of a lot of them was showing as zero.
As prices are showing sensibly in this ("LSE") site, I have at the moment to assume that there's some "platform" issue with ii, and/or its price feed has a problem. I was surprised that there was no announcement about the problem when I logged in.
Mike.

Okay Clued, thanks for the explanation.
Whatever the jurisdiction, CGT in relation to shareholdings, particularly longer-term ones, can become a complicated issue.
ATB, Mike.

Clued,
"you do know about FIFO treatment re shares sold under CGT ?".
Where are you getting your information? It's not been first in, first out, for over 14 years! The present arrangement ("Section 104" holdings) has been in force since April 2008. If you build up a holding in one company over various tranches of buying at different times, then you work out the "average" cost over the whole pool of shares, and use that to work out any gains when you sell. The exceptions are the "bed & breakfast" rule and the "same day" rule. It's all explained in the HMRC website.
https://www.gov.uk/tax-sell-shares/same-company
Mike.

Hi teamwork86,
Thanks for the explanation/insight into how the process works.
Evidently it's gone well, with more capital raised than originally announced. My only slight surprise was that, given the high demand and the need for scaling back, the issue price was "only" 114p from the 113p to 117p range; however, your post goes to explaining how that has happened.
I personally didn't subscribe to the Retail Offer. That was after very careful consideration taking into account the behaviour of the market price, and how "messy" it could get, given that I like "round" numbers of shares in my holdings, with so many variables (unknown price, unknown degree of scaling back, etc), and with the relatively small number of new shares I was looking for - I was hoping to top up my existing holding by about 15%. I actually bought what I wanted in the market late last week at just over 114p so didn't do too badly and now have certainty.
All the best, Mike.

In case anyone's confused, the second, lower, rate (5.1684p per share) is a correction, which was issued in an RNS announcement at 17:27 today. It's all explained in the announcement.
Mike.

inflationbuster,
I'm not sure where you're getting your figures for number of shares from.
On this "LSE" site, which is now updated, it says 9,663m.
In NWG's latest relevant RNS announcements, one today and one yesterday, it gives the total number of Ordinary shares, excluding Treasury shares, as:-
9,662,843,918.
I hope you're not thinking of buying them all up...
Please leave a few for the rest of us!
Mike.

Eightyeight88,
Who told you that the first day of trading of the consolidated shares was 31 August? Your broker? Somewhere on social media? I always find it best in the first instance to hear it direct "from the horse's mouth", ie from the company themselves. In this case, NWG's RNS announcement is here, and there's a useful timetable part-way down the announcement:-
https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/NWG/notice-of-general-meeting-and-class-meeting-c9a32krjtqj4yge.html
That said, superimposed can be any delays with the particular broker you use, as TheTrotsky says.
There's not just how long it takes for the "new", consolidated shares to appear in your account, but also how long it takes for them to pass on to you any cash you should get from "fractional entitlements" (although in my case I'm not "holding my breath" for that!).
In the Corporate Action Notice I received from my broker, although it's probably just a generic sentence, it says that one should allow 10 working days for your account to be fully updated, because there are circumstances beyond their control where they are reliant on other parties.
I hope that helps,
Mike.

TheTrotsky,
Okay, thanks for taking the time to explain your calculations and logic. There's nothing there I disagree with.
These are very small percentage differences that could get swamped by wider market movements.
I agree (although I haven't yet read today's 14:00 RNS announcement) that it would be *extremely* unlikely that they'd change the consolidation ratio at this very late stage. Although I don't think they've said so explicitly, I imagine that the ratio was probably set as long ago as late July, at the time of the results announcement. If they did now change the ratio, there'd be a very large number of resolutions that they'd have to amend and which would presumably have to be voted on all over again.
Regards,
Mike.

Hi TheTrotsky,
In your post yesterday at 23:36 you say:-
"... I sold my shares earlier this week at just over 261p with a view to buying back once the dust has settled. By my reckoning, if I can buy back the same number of new shares as I originally held for 258p or less then I'm quids in (after factoring in stamp duty and dealing charges)."
I'm not sure that that can be correct. By selling "cum-dividend", which they would have been at the 261p, isn't it the case that you've then foregone getting the ordinary 3.5p dividend, which you would have got had you held the shares into today when they went ex-dividend? Or am I misunderstanding how things work?
Mike.