Member Info for mole_man99

Bit early to release the bulls yet. First wiat for 7pm to see if FED decide to upend the markets.

Meanwhile UK gov will cap business energy costs at the cost of £150bn. Paid for by more debt (money printing) more inflation and a destroyed pound. Germany is struggling with energy too.

VOD won't avoid general market bearishness and it's still in control.

Of all the disposals VOD could do, selling the 80% left of towers is the worst. Once gone it does not absolve them of any responsibility really as they swap managing the separate unit for managing and paying to rent space on a tower network.

If Towers is the item that goes, it will be an enormous red flag of what’s really going on internally.

I did work out recently, if you bought on IPO day in 1995 and held, you made compound total returns of 4.5% pa. This includes divs. Better than a kick in the teeth as my dad would say.

Been through 4 of these Rob since 1990 and the answer is the same. Hold and buy more of great companies.

Evening. Evil Mole Harbinger of Doom Here. It's probably going down Friday along with the globe as Fedex just came out to say trade is falling off a cliff.

Hi Dan.
As at FY22
Bonds €48,031bn
Bond financing costs €1,546bn
Average rate 3.2%

US 10yr has jumped to 3.4%. A buyer of BBB bonds is going to want much more than that to warrant the risk compared to just buying a 10yr.

Some bonds are linked to libor+ so will be going up with interest rates now.

Total borrowings €70,092bn

Just to update, it went down today as the whole world did as US inflation came in higher than forecast. More FED rate rising, stronger dollar, higher commodity prices for non-dollar domains, more imported inflation for non-dollar domains, more rate rising for other central banks, potentially higher loans charges and higher bond coupons for borrowers. The first bond refinance for VOD is at the end of September which will probably see a higher coupon, unless they pay it off.

Short term there is not alot to be positive about. Will take a while for it to all wash through.

At some point the piper must be paid. You can’t take on 70bn of debt while paying out billions in div and buyback and accumulating 120bn of losses without matters catching up with you eventually. The market is being understandably cautious around VOD and it’s leveraged position as rising rates may come into play.

Enjoy the div, but I don’t think it is financially prudent to be paying it, and perhaps the market thinks so too.

I do understand the difference between good and bad gearing, which is why I am not invested in VOD. So does the market.
I'll carry on on holding the stocks I have and sleeping well at night. Bet going in my favour. Awkward.

They will never be permitted to dig up so much of Clontibret.

CGNR will let the strangely silent Turks carry on looking for gold and the years will pass. Next step will be the prof raising yet more funds from investors to keep going with the tantilisingly close idea of a gold mine funded by some fortune 500 overlord nobody has heard of.

Just limit your risk if you choose to believe.

Well keeping paying a div doesn't seem to be helping the SP either.

Gary is correct. They should cancel the div.
Dan is correct. IT will not go down well
Fleccy is correct. There are too many institutions that won't let them cut a div. VOD is stuck in a corner having to appease the wrong type of investor while they need to be directing the capital to future business. Reducing debt would be nice, but not necessary if they inflate earnings. They won't do this without heavy investment, but they keep throwing the capital away on buybacks and divs. Institutional short sighted nonsense.

The market knows it, hence the SP decline.

When this has doubled because London never did collapse, all the lemmings will turn up to buy it.

Back to gloomdom. It’s an odd global downturn this. Was with a client yesterday and it’s impossible to depress them. They just returned from a retail event and the customers were queuing and throwing around cash. Others in the room had returned from hols full of stories of full planes crowded venues and queues for restaurants.
Those with money still have money. Those who were struggling before still struggle.
The mega gloom seems to be restricted to professional markets who must sort out billions sitting in the wrong place (according to their clients) and move it to the new place, causing all manner of parabolic moves in exchange rates, commods etc. Markets can’t go anywhere till all the repositioning is done, except more down of course.
Meanwhile;
Winter is coming to freeze the nads off already depressed Russian soldiers.
Germany has enough gas stored to get to 2023 whatever
France firing up the nuke power plants
Every house built in the uk gets sold
We have a pm again
As long term investors we just gotta hang in there, in the right companies of course. If VOD is one of those right companies is another discussion.

CSDI gets the honorary mention for nailing the USA close price though, as markets faded away after UK closed.

PSN is a better place to keep your long term funds. VOD has a negative Altman Z score, currently -0.46. A negative score is high probabilty of bankruptcy within 2 years, or restructuring at least. $30bn of USA bonds ballooning in value as the strong dollar persists won't be helping.

PSN score 5.5. As fit and healthy as you can get.

It's all getting panned now. Are you in companies that will do well in the future bull market is what you want to check right now, as a long term investor that is.

Don't actually start a mine. Far too risky. Better to keep finding gold and pulling in investor funds.

When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius

Fleccy, it did go under a £1 in the panicdemic, 92.78p at one point.
Would need a catalyst to enduce that sort of decline. Could happen if they have a hard time refinancing the Sept bond. I'm sure it will go fine but the coupon rate will be interesting.
If they just want to pay it off, the FX rate has added €400m to the bill.

Not broadband, yet
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/08/forget-5g-wireless-spacex-and-t-mobile-want-to-offer-zero-g-coverage/