"For every 1p rise above my average, £1k gain"
Remember to not let one share take up too large a position of your portfolio. I once got carried away and had a single share taking up almost 40% of my portfolio, was great for a while but then it turned into a learning experience!
That said, LGEN is my largest holding at about 12% of my portfolio. But if it ever got anywhere near even 30% (and that could well happen) then this time I would do some re-balancing.
"Wish I sold half my holdings at 296 before ex div. oh well good long term hold anyway."
But it hardly makes much difference whether you sold or held. The adjusted close on 14th was 278.06p and when you take the costs of buying back in plus the stamp duty then you're looking at an equality price of about 276.5p, which is a little lower than where we are now as I write this. Furthermore, had you sold, you would need to get back in by now not to miss out on future gains. Just not worth the hassle. If it's much higher than 276.5p on payment date and you're not back in by then you will definitely have reason to feel cheated.
Not really. It's a little below the 276.5 figure that would give equality with selling (don't forget the stamp duty) but not by much. Still would not have been worth the hassle and worry that you'll miss out on the inevitable climb.
Interestingly, the current price is above 278.06 (290.70 - 12.64, close minus divi), so anyone who sold yesterday is down and will have to pay stamp duty and trading costs to get back in. In fact, anything above about 276.5 means that it wasn't worth selling yesterday.
"Save that for those volatile AIM type stocks and let this one ride!"
Exactly, not worth the certainty of the stamp duty and trading costs, in addition to the possibility that you might not be back in when it recovers - as it always does.
"What do people think about above on SP post divi payment date?"
Usually the drop on ex-dividend date is more or less equal to the dividend, 12.64p in the case, and trading starts from around that figure depending on what other factors are also influencing the price.
If we're back at about 290p on payment date 27th May then I'll be happy with that: got the dividend for free and no trading costs and stamp duty to buy back in.
But if I had to put my money on it (which is what I'm doing, of course), I'd say the SP will be over 300p on payment day and I'll be a very happy man.
"I had a daft idea of selling up just before ex div, and it only dropped by a couple of pence"
It's been my experience that any drop is usually made up pretty quickly, and my policy of holding and taking the dividend has served me well over the years. I don't like being out of a share like this, even if it's only for a few days.
"I don't understand why they aren't revisiting the AZN half dose error in the phase 3 trials"
Neither do I. All I can come up with is that it was already packaged and ready to go. Yes, there was a very poor attempt after the error was discovered to justify the two full doses, but the numbers are pretty suspect and the bmj paper even has a nice cop-out line stating that the confidence intervals were wide.
There has been an awful lot of very very poor mathematics surroundings the vaccine studies and, unfortunately, this is nothing new as far as research medical papers are concerned.
As regards the J&J vaccine, it's another adenovirus vector vaccine and so possibly subject to similar problems as the AZN vaccine.
We just don't know on average (we're all different) for how many doses a given viral vector will continue to do its job. It's completely possible that the viral vector will be destroyed even on the first dose, just depends on how reactive one's immune system is. What we do know is that it's very likely one's immune system, when functioning well, will adapt to the vector and so the vaccine will become less efficient with extra doses. Usually, this is a small number of doses if the subjects are young and healthy. Anyway, it's not a problem changing the vector. It's just research and keeps pharma in business.
papucel
I'm well aware of the bmj preprint published on 3 February which 'supports' the longer 12 week dosage interval but the reality is that there was not enough time to get reliable data at that point. It was more political than science. They even give themselves the nice cop-out line: its efficacy increased with a longer gap between doses but the confidence intervals were wide.
What I have always found very curious about the way the AZN vaccine has been administered is that their own studies demonstrated that a half first dose followed by a full dose was much more effective than two full doses. They then proceed to ignore this and administer two full doses - not exactly following the science!