Member Info for Pianista

Now that the results are out of the way, we just need some director buying,

Unfortunately, "£1.4bn" is not the supposed value of HFD on takeover. It's just the value of the combined entity, of which HFD would account for about a third.

Recent buying by insiders would seem to indicate that no discussions are taking place at present. That could change at any moment though.

Prior Period Adjustment = Prior Period Balls-up. Unforgiveable.

Nonetheless, if you still believe in the company, it's a buying opportunity.

Should stop the rot. But we may have to wait for the actual half year numbers in a week or two's time, before the shares solidly head back north again.

No, it was just a test purchase - though I have made a couple of purchases recently at an average of c14.5p, in the expectation that the market will finally respond favourably when the interim results are published (the drastically reduced cost base should ensure a respectable profit whatever the revenue performance).

But I've just done a test purchase of 10,000 and was quoted 17.5p, so something is brewing....

Hopefully, CMD will stimulate some interest. Meanwhile, the shares have inevitably been marked down: yesterday, 17.4p to buy, today 16.6p (so far).

Not surprised about the insurance capacity and pricing issues, in view of my own personal experience. However, it's a shame they don't highlight in the trading statement the fact that they still expect to make approaching £2m adjusted profit this year. The question is, when will that be reflected in the share price?

Yes, they’re the company's broker, but equally is there anyone - broker or otherwise, including posters on this board - who doesn’t have an agenda these days?

“DYOR” is the name of the game.

Peel Hunt aren't as pessimistic, Slipperman: they've just increased target to 275p.

Yes, I've been around a long time, but I managed to average down when it dropped to 5p, so I'm now sitting on a tidy profit. But there's more to come...

More unflattering reporting by Alliance News, with its focus on "unchanged" statutory profit and “soaring” admin expenses.

The expenses are merely a reflection of the increased size of the company (turnover up 144%)!

In any case, £1m of them were one-off items - without which statutory profit would have been £2.3m, an increase of 77% over the previous year.

Moreover, since these costs are, by definition, not expected to recur, we can look forward to the same sort of increase in statutory profit for the current year.

This should at long last get us back into the 20s...

You can't ignore the bear case, which is that once pent-up demand has been satisfied, the industry will no longer be insulated from the recession. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s also talk of a new Covid wave, and rumours of travel restrictions coming back this autumn.

TUI is certainly not a one-way bet.

Someone obviously thinks the recent 20% drop has been well-and-truly overdone.

Or even 2%, because 1% takes you to 3%.

1% is reportable if you already own at least 3%.

Ports – I agree the margins are on the low side, but not paper thin, like with the supermarkets, say. In fact, they’re shooting for 7.5% to 10%, which would be quite respectable.

Moreover, it doesn’t look like there’ll be a severe downturn. Of course, they’re playing down the economic headwinds, but it looks to me like in any event they’re already priced in to some extent; moreover, I take comfort from the fact that DX has no debt to worry about (except for lease liabilities).

The acid test for me, is: “Would I invest at this point if I weren’t already a holder?” I see 20% upside this year, and with more to come, so the answer is “Yes” - but as part of a balanced portfolio (to include a sizeable chunk of cash, just in case...).

Low margin maybe, but that in itself is not a problem or a reason to avoid the share (especially just after a big chunk of the competition has been taken out!)

The opposite in fact: even with a low margin it’s making healthy profits - which is what matters to the SP – and if its revenues increase by 10%, its profits (and in theory its SP) will also increase by 10% - actually, more than 10% due to operational gearing, and also because its profit margin is on the up from a low base.

Insofar as anything at all can be regarded as a "solid" investment in the current macroeconomic climate, I think DX ticks more boxes (or parcels!) than most, but we shall see...

To be honest, the bit about "making a packet" is just poetic licence - they couldn't resist the pun when referring to a "parcels" company.

However, I wouldn't argue with their verdict that the "outlook is upbeat" and the "shares are undervalued", seeing as I've gone with upper 30s by the end of this year, which represents a 20% upside.