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IG is good, Dealing is cheap at £3 for frequent fliers. But the best feature is being able to trade on the order book, so you can buy on the bid and sell on the offer. Just experimenting with freetrade at the moment, less sophisticated but cheaper, the main disadvantage is not being able to get the trade you want in a fast moving market, eg I could trade DLG on IG during last Thurday’s spike, but couldn’t on freetrade.
Thomp, yes the spin off model puts me off buying back in, the price has to discount the disadvantage of being locked in.
I didn’t watch the auction today so can’t say if MMS we’re participating or not but anyone can join in, I do sometimes if I can see a good price forming. It’s the best place to trade on the order book especially where there’s a wider spread between bid and offer.
There are none of the big market makers anywhere near the top of the bid or offer if you look at the order book, probably about 50 levels from the top. The price is determined at the margin by other market participants, like all of us.
There are not any retained losses to offset tax on future profits. The effect of the capital reduction was to debit share premium and credit retained profit/ loss. So look at the interim accounts at 31May, share premium is now nil and retained earnings are £39m profit. Look also at the statement of changes in shareholder equity to see how the capital reduction works through from the previous balance sheet.
No there aren’t any accumulated losses, that was the point of the capital reorganisation, ie to facilitate spin offs by dividend in specie and future potential cash dividends.
Spot on, ppl shouldn’t obsess about whether trades are buys or sells, they are all just trades and are both simulataneously. For example , I can and often do place an order on the bid , so somebody else sells against my bid and I’ve bought the shares from them. Actually it’s the best way to buy on the bid rather than on the offer, obviously it’s a bit cheaper! Depends which broker you’re with.
Papucel, there is no reliable source of buy/sell information. The source information is the stock exchange where trades are just that, a trade is a buy and a sell.
As you say sites like this try to derive the buy/ sell info from whether the trade price is above or below the average of the the offer/ bid prices. IMO this is meaningless and better if they didn’t try to derive this info.
Having said that you can get discrepancies between different information providers, because the data feeds for the order book bid/offer and trades are from different sources and can be slightly out of synch with each other, ie the trade can be reported fractionally before or fractionally after the bid/offer changes.
IMO best just to look at the trade numbers and make your own judgement about market movements.
Could be a big fund had change of strategy or new manager, could be hedge fund selling hard to buy back lower, could be a big sell order being worked over a longer period. Of course PHNX went ex div yesterday so some selling cum div, markets are falling due to suggestions of Fed tapering sooner than expected, and today is monthly options expiry.
So who knows, but sometimes you have to have the courage of your own convictions and take advantage of an opportunity in front of you. This will turn round at some point but nobody knows exactly where the bottom is.