Member Info for ToffAppleton1

I must admit I find the unfounded speculation on a dividend cut most amusing. In my very experienced view the source of this misinformation has been perpetrated by the very institutions stealthily shorting GSK. Spreading false rumors to benefit a trading position is as old as the market itself.

But there’s another dimension to it. The perpetrators rely on novice traders who erroneously believe everything is fair are square in stock markets and therefore there must be a good reason for everything. As we’ve seen from a few posters on this board they’re the ones who defend every shareprice drop and seek to justify it - amplify every negative factor at the expense of everything positive and ‘curve fit’ every pessimism so it fits just right. They’re the ones who spread misinformation more than those who put the misinformation out in the first place. They’re also the same ones who justify obscene valuations in assets such as Bitcoin Tesla Astra Zeneca and Ocado. And alternate reality? The world upside down? A contrary view?

More like as thick as two short planks!

They’re also the ones PT Barnum was referring to when he coined the phrase ‘there’s one born every minute’

Marques

“I have only been investing for a short while, I haven’t experienced the effects of a full year trading update.”

We'll see on Thursday. The results could be good but the market may still react badly. Last two updates have beat expectations- both times the shareprice rose initially and then fell back ( thanks to institutional wash-trading - shorting by stealth)

Don’t have hang ups about being inexperienced. Just follow a few simple rules - such as not going all -in to one or two shares - don’t average down - and try to spot turkeys before they go into the oven.

Toff

Drug

When Glaxo’s business does diverge into two separate entities, we should assume the two separate businesses will each pay an independent dividend based on performance.
Speculating on how much is pointless right now as there’re so many unknowns. It could just as well be more than less. These fabricated and recycled views by amateur market commentators have no influence whatsoever.

Marques

This isn’t an opinion from Glaxo’s board nor is it one from a market professional. It’s an opinion from an anonymous nobody who writes amateur articles for one of a Rupert Murdoch’s far-right rags.
It shouldn’t be taken seriously. I read the article in its entirety and concluded the author took his cue from Credit Suisse’s downgraded last week.
So nothing new. Just a clueless wannabe market commentator parroting stale rumors.

Papucel

“The reason I chose to step away from the industry is that there is absolutely no connection between the fundamentals of a company and these products, the algorithms are making predictions on the same criteria as a casino game.“

That’s exactly the point I was trying to make when I started this thread. AI is determining outcomes irrespective of all else. AI has been ‘weaponized’ to arrive at desirable outcomes for institutional investors. They collude and program their algorithm order books accordingly but who can prove that even though it’s obvious?

I see the present situation coming to a head in the not too distant future. These are the financial weapons of mass destruction that Buffett talked about years ago. Except now they’re on steroids.
Another aspect of artificially structured trading (AST) is moral hazard - especially applicable to retail investors. But that’s a whole new post for another day.

AST - I just coined that phrase (acronym) so I want copyright on it when it becomes market nomenclature:)

Baffled

“Shorting is not necessary because it used not to exist”

I think you’ll find that shorting has existed far longer than you think. Going back to 1907 Jesse Livermore was shorting Wall Street and only stopped when JP Morgan asked him to during a market crisis. Livermore went on to make a killing in the WS crash of 1929.

But before that - in Napoleonic times there are examples of speculators betting on negative outcomes.

Papucel

You raise some interesting points. Although naked shorting was outlawed in 2008 it still continues in the options markets.

But that aside, ordinary shorts which constitute the vast majority, are no different from going long - in that you have to place a deposit when opening a position or covering the cost in full if you have a share dealing account. You quite rightly highlight the malpractice of naked shorting.

However ordinary shorts provide liquidity and are a safeguard against the excesses and extremes in markets which we are seeing now.

Shorting is far more risky than going long. As we’ve seen with heavily shorted shares, market makers put a short squeeze on traders and clean up. Case in point being Ocado - the most heavily shorted share in the uk when it was £3. All the MMs had to do was continually mark the valuation upwards and take the short money off the table. It doesn’t matter that it’s trading on a p/e of thousands. All they need to do is mark it ever higher to pocket millions. It’s about £28 now, still heavily shorted and still being marked ever higher by the criminals who run markets. Another example how bent market makers manipulate shareprices to enrich themselves.
Anyone who believes UK shareprices aren’t determined and manipulated by the institutions responsible for trading them is naive in the extreme.
In the era of AI it’s easy to do and almost impossible to prove; even though all the evidence is in the shareprice action.

Chris

You have no real understanding of the dynamics of shorting. It’s as essential for a healthy market as death is to life.

Shorting institutions root out rogue businesses by doing endless hours of painstaking research. They blew the whistle on Wirecard for example and saved markets and investors from an even bigger catastrophe. Companies don’t go bust because they are shorted they go bust because they run out of cash.

The uniformed vilify shorters because they’re ignorant and don’t understand markets.

Another example is Game Stop which made headlines yesterday.
A company with an archaic business model - bricks and mortar gaming retailer - think HMV.

Shareprice rise from $4 to $194 on the back of mindless buying by retail investors and hedge funds.
Before the era of AI shorting wouldn’t have allowed that to happen. This isn’t investing - his can a company like HMV be valued at tens of billions?
No - it’s gaming - it’s virtual reality trading of worthless assets. It’s a house of cards, only the money is real.

And don’t forget..

Shorters are buyers too - when they close their positions. Just like when you sell a share you’re actually shorting it. The only difference is shorters sell first and buy later.

Poker

Shell have suffered oil theft and infrastructure sabotage on a constant basis on its Nigerian operations since the day they arrived. As you probably know - countries don’t come anymore corrupt and lawless than Nigeria.

Politicians send their thugs out to vandalize installations and purposely cause environmental damage. Then those same politicians go to the country’s kangaroo courts (which are equally corrupt) and file for compensation.

It’s a terrible place to do business and not somewhere any company wants to be. It’s common knowledge among everyone who works at Shell that this is par for the course of doing business in the world’s most corrupt country. It’ll never change it’ll always be this way.

Between the ftse100 and Dow is ONLY attached on the way DOWN. When the Dow rises the ftse100 still gets trashed by market makers.

Hence its nickname in the square mile; Permabear.

Fats says market orders are executed electronically.
He’s right about that but that’s all.

Trades are executed by algo-traders and they’re programmed by institutional investors.

And institutional traders collude with each other to ensure their trading robots are programmed one and the same

To determine shareprices...

Markets are driven by artificial intelligence
AI is used to determine outcomes.

The Dow for example - their robots are programmed to buy but buy - irrespective of valuations or fundamentals

The ftse100 is the home of global shorting
They have to make money somewhere so they’ve singled out the UK to sell short - once again irrespective of valuations or fundamentals.

And herein the danger lies...

Shorting is essential to stop markets from overvaluing - to stop the formation of bubbles.

Would anyone dare short US stock markets when the full weight of artificial intelligence is stacked against them? obscene valuations that become more obscene every day. Anyone trying to short is standing in front of a tidal wave of machine driven madness.

Conversely we have the ftse100
The worlds worst performing stock market.
Those same machines are biased to the selling side.
It’s a sick wildebeest that’s been singled out by the hyenas.

The result of the dominance of AI in markets is what we are seeing now.

Grossly overvalued
And grossly undervalued indexes.
Valuations have been knocked out of kilter

And this is leading to an algo driven crash of monumental proportions.

Markets have lost their equilibrium.
Shorters are annihilated in US markets
While anyone going long on the ftse100 is getting equally annihilated.

Without the essential balance between the two you’re on a runaway train.

And runaway trains always end in a CRASH!

Fats says market orders are executed electronically.
He’s right about that but that’s all.

Trades are executed by algo-traders and they’re programmed by institutional investors.

And institutional traders collude with each other to ensure their trading robots are programmed one and the same

To determine shareprices...

Markets are driven by artificial intelligence
AI is used to determine outcomes.

The Dow for example - their robots are programmed to buy but buy - irrespective of valuations or fundamentals

The ftse100 is the home of global shorting
They have to make money somewhere so they’ve singled out the UK to sell short - once again irrespective of valuations or fundamentals.

And herein the danger lies...

Shorting is essential to stop markets from overvaluing - to stop the formation of bubbles.

Would anyone dare short US stock markets when the full weight of artificial intelligence is stacked against them? obscene valuations that become more obscene every day. Anyone trying to short is standing in front of a tidal wave of machine driven madness.

Conversely we have the ftse100
The worlds worst performing stock market.
Those same machines are biased to the selling side.
It’s a sick wildebeest that’s been singled out by the hyenas.

The result of the dominance of AI in markets is what we are seeing now.

Grossly overvalued
And grossly undervalued indexes.
Valuations have been knocked out of kilter

And this is leading to and algo driven crash of monumental proportions.

Markets have lost their equilibrium.
Shorters are annihilated in US markets
While anyone going long on the ftse100 is getting equally annihilated.

Without the essential balance between the two you’re on a runaway train.

And runaway trains always end in a CRASH!

Show me another market where multinationals trade on p/e’s of 4/5/6?

There isn’t one. That dubious distinction belongs to the Permabear 100

Aviva
Barclays
BT
But to name three

Trade on less than half their historical average.
Before a market maker cartel took over and trashed uk stocks into the ground.

The system and the institutions we have valuing uk shares isn’t working.
It needs a radical overhaul and all those responsible for miss-valuing shares got rid of.

About 500 points higher than in 1999. The worst performing global market and one of the worst long term investments ever.
Twenty-one years a loser and the way market makers value multinationals the ftse100 could well drop below its 1999 level.

Almost all gains allocated to miners. Strip them out if the index and its closer to 4500 Oil up today - Shell down. Now trading at about what it did when oil was $40.

My view - market makers are trashing shares before the earnings season kicks off next week. That way when earnings beat expectations they can limit the gains and collect on their short positions.

The market makers are factoring in VIR’s fall yesterday into Glaxo today.

Which would be understandable IF they'd factored it IN in the first place.

But they didn’t. They marked Glaxo down when VIR was in the ascendancy.

That’s Uk market makers for you.
A double-markdown.
That’s how the Permabear 100 works
That’s why it’s the Permabear.

About 500 points higher than in 1999. The worst performing global market and one of the worst long term investments ever.
Twenty-one years a loser and the way market makers value multinationals the ftse100 could well drop below its 1999 level.

Almost all gains allocated to miners. Strip them out if the index and its closer to 4500

The usual suspect is leading global markets down today. The ftse100 missed out on the global rally which left other markets at record highs.
But it isn’t shy about leading downwards.

How much longer are British companies, that make 90 percent of their revenue outside the UK, going to tolerate bent market makers trashing their shares. They must know the bonobos who value UK shares do so at a 30-40 percent discount to the rest of the world.

My advice is to follow Scotland and Ireland in leaving the UK and leaving this little cesspit to wallow in its own corruption.

Char

“Bad news could put share price below £11 . I said a month ago a sell off of 10%+ was on the cards, has did a few analysts on CNBC”

Bla-bla-bla!!!

You don’t know what you’re talking about. There’re too many losers who use hindsight to predict the past on these boards. And like you they’re forever giving themselves a pat on the back for predicting the past.

Shell will rise on results day - beat market expectations. And unlike your predictions - mine predict future events.

Poker

Interesting observations. Without looking it up I believe the first time Uncle Sam printed money was in the American civil war. The Unionists didn’t have the money to pay their soldiers so they resorted to the printing press.

And haven’t stopped since:-)

Glaxo’s phenomenal investment in VIR hasn’t been factored into the shareprice. But you can be sure the obtuse market makers that TRASH UK shares would factor any negative news from VIR TENFOLD

Since 1999 the Dow has almost QUADRUPLED
The DAX has almost TRIPLED
And the FTSE100 has risen about 600 points.

The Permabear 100
Valued by crooked bonobos.
British companies deserve better.

And the way to do that and enrich their shareholders is to leave Britain and relist in markets that value shares fairly.