Member Info for Slownsteady

Hereshopin... no disrespect meant but your pseudynom kinda sums it up. There's quite a few holes in your thesis but I tire of explaining it to the inexperienced. Lets just say the richest Investor in the world has said he doesn't care if the Stock market closes for 10 years. In my own - admittedly extreme - case, I had an Portfolio if �Z at the beginning of 2016. By the end of the year, it was �2xZ. I had times when I thought it might be time to cash out but I held my nerve. Even the recent pull back and my (heavy post Rights Announcement) loss on CPI leaves it @ �2.25xZ. Not a single Professional Fund Manager claims to be able to read 1-2% moves. Your money, play the dice if you wish.

Its 191p now. Easier money this (or any other) if bought cheap and held.

Yes I'm in.. HeresHopin. There's value here. I'm with Woody Woodpecker's latest thoughts on this one, The market sell off doesn't bother me in the slightest, as I'm a long term holder with good divi income on the portfolio.

Ok I knew this already. I think you'll find $11.47 equates to 200p, not 230.

Where do you get this from Malkis? Link would be helpful.

No, just his usual "compelling proposition" and "deploy" wafflespeak. He had no idea this was coming. He first bought in (sorry, "deployed") two years ago. At 12 quid! I guess it was also a "compelling proposition" then.

This is the reality of what we have been writing about for some time now. Markets are being driven by momentum. Valuation is irrelevant � it simply does not matter in the stock market at the moment. The only question that ultimately matters to me when forming an investment judgement, is �what is the company worth?�. On that basis, it strikes me that a decision to sell Capita here is almost impossible to justify from a fundamentally-based perspective. Some facts about Capita. In 2016, the company made an underlying pre-tax profit of �475m. It�s share price at the start of that year was �12. Current guidance from the company for profits in a depressed 2018 � a year in which the business is reset, will be investing in efficiency improvements and incurring a number of one-off costs � is in a range between �270-300m. The share price at the time of writing is 165p. There are a lot of moving parts and other issues to consider but if this was all you had to go on you might think that, from the perspective of valuation, this is a little bit interesting. There are of course buyers of corporate assets that are not disciples of the momentum school of investing � I suspect that other businesses and private equity buyers will be circling Capita as I write. I am not trying to make a silk purse out of a sow�s ear � this has been a poor investment, but it is one that has the capacity to become a significantly better one from here. There is much work to be done to turn the business around, but there is a clear plan and the project is underway. Discussions with all major customers have gone very well as have conversations with the Cabinet Office. The collapse of Carillion has catalysed the whole outsourcing sector to rebase its relationship with the Government, which also recognises the need for change, to reflect a fairer balance between risk and reward. (By the way, they are both outsourcers but the only other similarity between Capita and Carillion is the first two letters of the name.) I would go as far as to say that the business will be in better shape at the end of 2018 than it was in 2016. It will have infinitely better leadership, a stronger balance sheet, better cash flow, more conservative accounting policies and a lower pension deficit. The mistake I have made, albeit I didn�t know it at the time, was in owning Capita in 2016. It is not a mistake to own it now. And so, I will not be compounding the previous error by behaving in an irrational and valuation insensitive way now. Whilst the stock market remains totally preoccupied with momentum and insensitive to valuation, we should all expect the environment to remain as challenging for the Woodford funds, as it has been since early summer last year. I will underperform in such market conditions as I have done before. Equally, however, we should expect rationality to return in an unpredictable way,

Many of you have, understandably, asked for my current perspective on Capita, following its sharp share price decline earlier this week. It is not always possible to provide an immediate comment in response to events, nor is it always advisable. Having had a couple of days to reflect and consider what has happened, I would like to provide some context. At the start of this week, Capita represented approximately 0.8% of the Woodford Equity Income Fund, and about 1.3% of the Woodford Income Focus Fund. Since the profit warning on Wednesday, Capita�s share price has broadly halved, which has clearly been unhelpful to recent performance. Putting the share price reaction to one side for a moment, I am pleased that we have seen from the company what we thought would be coming. This is a complete reset for Capita. The new chief executive, Jonathan Lewis, has mapped out a clear new direction of travel for the business and it is one with which I completely agree. More focus, better leadership, better cost control, a stronger balance sheet (through a combination of disposals, dividend cut and a future capital raise) which will, in turn, lead to more investment in the business, an enhanced competitive position and a brighter future for its shareholders and customers. Many of you have, understandably, asked for my current perspective on Capita, following its sharp share price decline earlier this week. It is not always possible to provide an immediate comment in response to events, nor is it always advisable. Having had a couple of days to reflect and consider what has happened, I would like to provide some context. At the start of this week, Capita represented approximately 0.8% of the Woodford Equity Income Fund, and about 1.3% of the Woodford Income Focus Fund. Since the profit warning on Wednesday, Capita�s share price has broadly halved, which has clearly been unhelpful to recent performance. Putting the share price reaction to one side for a moment, I am pleased that we have seen from the company what we thought would be coming. This is a complete reset for Capita. The new chief executive, Jonathan Lewis, has mapped out a clear new direction of travel for the business and it is one with which I completely agree. More focus, better leadership, better cost control, a stronger balance sheet (through a combination of disposals, dividend cut and a future capital raise) which will, in turn, lead to more investment in the business, an enhanced competitive position and a brighter future for its shareholders and customers. This reset has been met with a massive fall in the share price from an already very depressed level. In the current market conditions, perhaps we should not have expected anything else. After all, Capita represents many of the things that this market loathes at the moment � it is exposed to the UK economy, it has a recent record of disappointment, it is an outsourcer. This is the reality of what we ha

Capita �not the next Carillion� No threat to outsourcer despite fourth profit warning, says chief Capita, the troubled outsourcer which issued a fourth profit warning yesterday, was awarded almost �200 million of state contracts since its first alert 16 months ago. The 193 public service awards to the company since September 2016 have come despite government rules designed to limit taxpayer exposure to risky suppliers. The latest warning was part of a �triple whammy� of action to shore up the contractor�s balance sheet under Jonathan Lewis, the turnaround specialist appointed as chief executive last October to revive its fortunes. The plans, which wiped �1.1 billion off Capita�s stock market value and sent its shares to their lowest since 2002, down 47.5 per cent at 182�p, included: �A rights issue of up to �700 million, with standby underwriting in place; �Suspension of the dividend until Capita generates sustainable cashflow; �A cut in its 2018 underlying pre-tax profit forecast to between �270 million and �300 million, up to 30 per cent lower than market forecasts; �Offloading businesses to simplify its sprawling structure. City analysts described the plans as �kitchen-sinking� and said that while Capita would look very different in the future, it would survive. The share fall was painful for big institutional investors, such as Woodford Investment Management, which lost millions. Capita is one of the country�s biggest outsourcing companies, delivering wide-ranging services to the public and private sectors, employing almost 70,000 people and generating revenues of �4.9 billion. Its work ranges from collecting the TV licence fee for the BBC and mortgage administration services for the Co-op Bank to customer services for Three, the telecoms company, and services for the NHS and Ministry of Defence. Like several rivals in the sector, Capita has been hit by rising costs, a slowdown in decision-making from prospective customers and troublesome contracts. The collapse of Carillion, a rival outsourcer, this month has unnerved investors and civil servants and heaped intense regulatory scrutiny on the sector. Frank Field, chairman of the Commons work and pensions select committee, which is investigating Carillion, said: �Another day, another outsourcing firm with massive debt, a huge pension deficit, a KPMG audit and the Big Four popping up at every turn in the company�s chequered history.� Mr Lewis, who met a government representative yesterday, explained to the City why Capita was not the next Carillion: �We are not under some existential threat,� he said. �We have cash on the balance sheet today and we have underwriting for �700 million and could raise many hundreds of millions from disposals if we wanted to. �Did

Ya Just. Not forgetting AZN, A lot of the credit for previous successes goes to the Invesco team.

Thanks Just... my port is over a million. And made 650k (now 600k) last couple of years. So painful, yes, disastorous -no. I'm not putting more into this one. No one to blame but myself.

Disaster. I'll look to bite the bullet, and learn my lesson. 40k loss as I speak.

Stay calm people. There WILL be pullbacks, especially if the US Bond / Equity markets tank. Sit it out and collect the dividends. BUT get rid of any leveraged positions. Now.

Lol downbut.. sorry typo should've read 27% (inclusive of c5% dividends, some partial withdrawals). But still... Ftse 100 (my benchmark) up 7.6% in 2017; Ftse 250 up 14.7%... even 17% would be considered a perfectly satisfactory outcome by most Fund Managers. They go cockahoop - and get a big bonus - if they outperform their benchmark by 2%. I would be surprised if too many UK focused Fund Managers managed 27%, let alone 90 odd percent. By the way this is mostly in our ISAs, so no gearing up (borrowing) involved.

downbut.. No BS... but 97% portfolio gain in 2016... 17% in 2017.... I don't worry too much about a few pence movements this way or that. My advice... too much chopping and changing is counterproductive. Only makes the broker and taxman rich, at your expense.

Jeez downbut.. you're as bad as that 1-d-1-0-t TomE with this constant drizzle of sp updates.

patel.. there's a couple of reasons for 'after close' Trades. One is if the size is a particularly large. Rules allow reporting of this to be held back, so they may reflect a price agreed even in that morning, and bear little relation to closing UT price. There might also be trades executed after hours in the 'grey' market. Generally these do not necessarily reflect the following day's opening price. For example, the day before after hours... some trades executed @ 371. The morning price was lower.

The moment someone talks about MMs manipulating the price, or hidden agendas, I know they are novices.

Some pretttty chunky US buying after market close... I'm guessing this is not normal?

I'm in. My portfolio now looks remarkably like Woodford's... LGN, ITV, SAGA, CPI, LAND (he has British Land), GSK (he has AZN), IMB, and others (but Not PFI !!). But these have all been purchased near their recent lows.