Member Info for TinkerT

I see we’ve dropped over5% in the week and over 2% today. I see my other insurers have taken a hit today also. Any reason for this?

T

.... all of which just supports the case for BP to get out of Britain.

T

I’m not a supporter of Putin but I think it is instructive to look at things from a Russian point of view. Russia, throughout her history has suffered invasion from the west. The foreign policy has been to support buffer states between Russia and her aggressors. Since 1989 the West has advanced (yes, with the support of the governments of the former Warsaw Pact counties and former Soviet republics) INTO not UP TO the former Russian Empire/Soviet Uinion. Of course Russia feels threatened. Imagine if Hitler had stationed troops in the Irish Free State in the 1930s.

So, whilst deploring the invasion of the Ukraine, I cannot see it as unprovoked. In old fashioned language, “Russia’s sphere of influence must be respected”. Ukrainian nationalism, incidentally, is an invention of the last thirty years.

T

Yeah and Results Day a week on Tuesday (29th). Not looking forward to that one as oil price will have all too obvious effect on the Q3 profits and any excuse seems to send us spiralling down. Still, the market is perverse so who knows....

Wookiee,

False religions are, indeed great evils. But consider the analogy of arithmetic; children may get different (wrong) answers to their sums but that does not invalidate the one true answer. It is not irrational to say that all religions except one are false. It is my view that both contending religious systems in the Middle East are false but others will disagree.

Would the world be a kinder place if the countries were ruled by atheists like Stalin, Mao, Hitler or you?

T

Wookiee,

This is a forum to discuss BP shares not a soapbox to make Dawkinsesque swipes at religion. In any case, atheism is also a religion.

T

Yip, Snipe. Your 470p is more than reasonable. 480p represents a yield of 5% which is perfectly respectable. And that doesn’t take account of the value (?) of the buybacks.

Yes, ADHB, If I thought we were going down irretrievably then I’d sell at a loss of 90p a share and move on. Instead, I’ll hang on in. The bad thing about this share is that though we get occasional peaks over the 500p mark, they are few and far between. If you’re a long term holder with a high average then you’re going to feel locked in.

Knowing our BoD, instead of relocating to NY, they’ll opt for the the completely raving looney path and announce that instead of buybacks and instead of paying a divi then we’re going to pay any profits left after punitive taxation into a reparation fund to benefit people affected by climate change/slavery/the patriarchy or anything similar. Then we’d be “on the right side of history” and could re-apply for membership of the human race, having atoned for our part in the forcible eviction and house destruction of the Three Little Pigs. It may sound ridiculous but that is exactly what Welby has done with the (former) Church of England.

Nala,

Don’t know but (as per usual) it has affected us 150% as much as it has affected Shell. Let’s face it; BP doesn’t need a reason to take a dive. We’re not a ship. We’re a submarine.

Meoryou,

Agreed. The thieving tories needed all the money they could grasp after shutting down the economy for over a year and paying everybody’s wages out of nobody’s taxes.

T

On the last day that we had a Tory government, 4th July, our SP closed at 490.3. Since then we have dropped more than 80p ie 16%. On thinking about this, my first conclusion was that the election of a thieving Labour government had caused the fall. But then I remembered that the market knew we were going to have a thieving Labour government long before 4th July. I’m not for a second indicating any support for Sir K and his chums, just noting that something that on first sight seems obvious isn’t always the case.

T

There’s a typo in that last post. I meant to say “the divi it isn’t paying to the owner of the cancelled share”.

Hi Happy,

I agree that technically buybacks are a return but in practical terms it takes a long time for the benefit to filter through to the shareholder. If the company spends £4 to buy a share (or £3.70 the way things are going! ) then it saves about 24p a year on the divi that it isn’t paying off the cancelled share. £4 is an awful lot of 24ps so it’s a few years before it pays for itself.

I know you know this (which is probably why you’re not in favour of them) but I thought it worthwhile flagging it up.

Cheers, T

Sorry. Meant 5p down not 5%.

Down nearly 5% in the first five minutes! I suppose that means the market really was expecting pre tax profit to be above £70 million. Early days.

Definitely heading in the right direction. Winslow will be happy with the turnaround achieved in the short time he’s been here.

Prudent keeping the interim divi down to 2p. I’d like to think we’d get a bit more than another 4p at year end.

Interesting to see whether the market is prepared to back this or remain cautious.

T

In all fairness, we can’t blame the BoD for today’s debacle. Plenty of other casualties. Not just us.

Cheap as chips ... but not as tasty.

Char,

Sadly, I have to agree.

Compare with Shell: Over the last year, we are DOWN 15%. They are UP9%. Over the last five years, we are DOWN 15%. They are UP 18%.Are we operating in the same market? Yes. There is no excuse for this.

We saw a rally in April after Looney got sacked and it looked as though there might be a change of direction. Then it became obvious that we were going to continue with the tried and tested formula of failure. So now we’re heading towards £4.

Meanwhile, Barclays sticks with their target of £10. Beginning to think they’ve put the decimal point in the wrong place.

T