Member Info for TinkerT

Wish I wasn’t spent up or I’d be topping up massively. If you can’t buy then just hold on tight.
Tinker

The company is saying it will likely pay us 31.5p a share this year with an increase to 33p in 2023. This is a yield of nearly 8% at current SP. Surely anything less than 450 (7%) is too low. Did the recall of the divi in 2020 spook confidence in the company? Compared to other sectors (eg oil) I’d have thought insurance was lower risk. Who doesn’t want 7-8%?
Tinker

Thanks. That’s obvious it.
T

That was a very strange couple of minutes. 1:30pm we were over 382 then swift drop to 374 by 1:35. Any explanations?
Tinker

Meoryou,
Thanks for another great post. The one thing I’d add to your list of “negatives” (and its an important one) is the idea of “net zero”. A year ago in the lead up to Cop26 it was the main thing we were talking about. As Zac pointed out recently, we’re in a company saying it’s going to cut its oil and gas production by 40% by 2030. If that was just “Bernard Looney’s mouth” then we’d have less to worry about.
Tinker

Bernard want to turn us into an integrated energy company. Question: Is being an ex-drilling engineer in your 50s the best qualification for being head of an energy company focussed on renewable?
Tinker

Charlie,
You make a good point re Bernard’s own shares. We have to remember that he made two massive sales of his stock in 2019. These were reported as being at 560p and 540p. A few months later he was CEO, halving the divi and setting in place a divi policy that stopped the SP recovering after the pandemic and is designed to keep the SP low till at least 2025, thereby facilitating the buyback programme. He has suffered no personal loss.
Tinker

Meoryou,
Your theory certainly sounds credible and is undoubtedly based on accurate figures. If you are right then it goes to highlight the very temporary beneficial effect of buybacks on SP. Longer term, obviously, we have the potential to have bigger returns as the profit (IF the Board decides to distribute it) gets divided amongst fewer holders but it will take many years for the increased value of dividends paid on the remaining shares to match the capital cost of the buybacks.
I think you could be right but I do hope you’re not!
Tinker

Meoryou,
Thanks for that wee bit of research. I think the problem is that along with each set of fantastic results we get confirmation that the Board is sticking to its dividend policy of no significant increase till at least 2025. As quarter follows quarter we get the impression that that policy which we initially thought was a knee jerk reaction to the Covid panic is now something set in stone. Bernard Said we were a cash machine but it’s a funny cash machine that doesn’t pay out.
Tinker

Have you noticed that the BBC’s business news completely fails to mention the drop in share prices. They were pretty quick to jump on our profit announcements and give oxygen to the calls for windfall tax. Now, when investors lose over 8% of their capital in a single day,it doesn’t merit a comment. Who says the BBC hasn’t got a left wing agenda?
Tinker

I sold my house a month ago and, pending purchase of another, used a proportion of the proceeds to top up. Shell, BP (at the “low” of 404) and Aviva. Losses today alone are well into 5 figures. All my own fault. Hopefully temporary but who knows anything anymore? Are Barclays still sticking with their target of 700p? I’m not laughing much any more. Don’t imagine many of us are tonight.
Tinker

Yip. Now we’re greener than the Incredible Hulk on St Patrick’s Day. Surprised we didn’t get Greta to do a voice over for it.
Tinker

.... and no Americans to mess things up at 2:30.
Tinker

JSB,
I think you’re right. Divi at he current level (fluctuating with Sterling) is about 17.5p per share per year. At SP of 400p that translates to a yield of 4.375. At SP of 450p then it’s down to 3.88%. 500 is 3.5%. You’d have to see real prospects of serious capital growth to want to risk your money for such a modest income.
Tinker

Janbo,
You’re right. I started the “Sanctions” thread with a provocative but genuinely BP related post about how ineffective sanctions seemed to be, our loss of Rosneft being a pointless gesture. I should have known better. The thread quickly became an exchange of polemics.
Tinker

Phatfish,
This has moved considerably off topic but I think it’s only fair to point out that Russia has had a habit of being on the receiving end of aggressive invasions and has a more legitimate right than most to feel paranoid. Whether Putin genuinely feels threatened or not can only be speculated on.
Anyway, the consensus seems to be that the sanctions aren’t harming Russia very much (yet).
Tinker

A 9% drop in the last month is pretty spectacular. I keep looking at “announcements” imagining that there has been a profits warning or some similar news to warrant the decline. I have fared even worse on my oil holdings (BP and Shell). I can understand the oilies going down with the prospect of a recession and less consumption etc but Aviva and insurers generally shouldn’t be affected by that.
Any clues anyone?
Tinker

Thanks for your replies. I think the West is spitting into the wind and that in the not too distant future will accept whatever “solution” is imposed on Ukraine and go back to business as usual. The politicians will congratulate themselves for (1) having a conscience (no Munich) and (2) having enough pragmatism to acknowledge the inevitable. Meanwhile trade, jobs etc will be set back.
Chandley, your rouble to the pound comparison says it all about who is winning this one.
Tinker

Now that Russia is finding ready markets in China, India, Brazil and South Africa and Putin is proving that Russia’s economy has not been strangled quite as much as the gullible but well intentioned West would want it to be and, moreover, that our own economy is being strangled quite a bit (or even quite a lot) instead, why don’t we consider the next obvious course? That is, of course, to implement sanctions against China, India, Brazil and South Africa as punishment for their failure to sanctionalise Russia.
Warning: This post may contain sarcasm.
Tinker

I know this is off-topic but why are picket lines allowed? They are quite simply attempts to obstruct and intimidate workers who want to work. We saw enough of that in the Eighties and,indeed, in the Seventies. Are the unions saying that their members don’t know the arguments and have to be “persuaded” by Scargill and others who are not railwaymen and have got nothing to do with the dispute?
Timker