Member Info for ToffAppleton1

Emm

“Toff - Thats not true. 77 per cent of institutions own centrica. A decent percentage”

The link you posted with that information is dated April 2019. I think you’ll find it’s history now.

Toff

Emasculated

“For an ex professional trader £50/point for a trade with such a certainty is just disgraceful”

I keep my bets within reason. Discipline is vital in trading - something so sadly lacking in novices who continually average down on a losing position and end up all in and out if pocket on one share. Unlike this lot on the BT board I have numerous positions open at any one time- and none of them big enough to threaten a shark bite. I size position too. Never go all in on the first trade. Hoping to double up on my short position if BT goes towards 120

As is évident with you and the others on this board your obsession with BT has left you unable to capitalize on the best stock buying opportunities in a generation because you came obsessed with a single stock. If all your money weren’t tied up in a loser you could have bought into quality companies, not BT. So you’re a Loser twice over.

You cannot comprehend the thoughts of

Toff Appleton

You don’t have the intelligence.

Toonman

‘How do you know that institutional shareholders were dumping shares first thing and that these shares were bought by retail investors‘

I have my sources. Of course I can never be one hundred percent certain. But the combination of shareprice action/trade size and level 1 sell orders give a very strong inclination of what’s happening.

Institutional investors dumping shares and retail investors buying them is a constant in stock markets.
Take Centrica as a case in point - institutional investors have been dumping them for two years

And whose been buying them?

Who else but retail investors.

Toff

Toonman

‘I always assumed that the company has to disclose any changes of shareholdings by institutions via RNS, but that is usually some time after the event. ‘

That’s absolutely correct. Institutional investors also increase or decrease their weighting in companies. Unless there’s a substantial change in their position they don’t have to notify the market

Toff

Institutional investors dumping this share early morning. Hence the fall to 108

Shares were gobbled up by retail investors -the transfer of shares from the strong to the weak - hence the price recovery

Institutional investors are anticipating bad results

And so am I

Short @113
Possibly close @£1

Toff

What a pity the world's greatest investor didn’t have the benefit of being advised by some on this board. Doesn’t he know a paper loss is only a loss when you sell?

Apparently not.

Speaking at the annual shareholders' meeting, Mr Buffett said "the world has changed" because of the coronavirus.
He then said he had been wrong to invest in the airline industry.
Mr Buffett's comments came just hours after Berkshire Hathaway announced a record $50bn (£40bn) net first quarter loss, Reuters news agency reports.
The conglomerate had an 11% stake in Delta Air Lines, 10% of American Airlines, 10% of Southwest Airlines, and 9% of United Airlines, according to its annual report and company filings

Mr Buffett told the meeting, which was held virtually: "We made that decision in terms of the airline business. We took money out of the business basically even at a substantial loss.

Since BT began its precipitous descent from £5 it has drawn légions of unsophisticated investors in on its way to the abyss. The lower it goes the more people try to catch it on the basis of it being cheap relative to its former value. Carillion, Yell, HMW and a hundred others were all falling swords and they all drew in those who were convinced they’d caught them at the bottom. Most of whom remained in denial until the very last day of the company’s life.

BT was cheap at £3 - according to a lot of the old crones on this board. The same individuals have been banging on about how cheap BT is since it fell to £3. And look where it is - destined to test £1 next week - where would you be now if you’d listened to those chumps. Nursing a huge monetary loss - that’s where.

All falling swords follow the same pattern and hook the same types. Bottom feeders buying in on the sole premise that it looks cheap - with no regard as to why it’s so cheap. And we all know what ends up at the bottom.

PT Barnum is credited with coining the phrase - there’s one born every minute - and that certainly applies to some on this board who bought in at £4-5.
In my view it’s vindictive to try to draw people into a ruinous investment after you’d lost about 70-80 percent of your own investment in a company. And always under the pretext of jam tomorrow. Try telling that to someone who bought in on their instigation at £3-4. It’ll never change of course - foolishness is but a human statistic. As Kipling put it so eloquently...

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man-
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:-
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

The fire being BT in this instance.

Toff

Emasculated

“A wise member recently said on this BB, Toff is like “an annoying ex”

But believe me sucker - there’s nothing worse than an emasculated investor on these boards...

Chronic losers don’t make rational people

Toff

“Toffee, what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

You’ll find out what that means on Thursday!

Toff

Emm

something like 12p a share per annum for this year if earnings estimates accurate, which will still give 9/10 per cent yield on current sp and a dividend cover that is affordable.’

That’s never going to happen. When dividends reach those levels they become red flags. If you know your market history you’ll know that those payouts never materialize.

A best case scenario is 5p - that would be both sensible and sustainable. And at the level you bought in would still yield a respectable 4 percent.

I know those that bought in at £4 or £5 don’t like the threat of a dividend cut but BT has to adjust to the market’s reality not their’s.

We will see on Thursday.

Toff

Rooster

“ companies that borrow money to pay dividends....”
Toff, Enlighten us when was the last time BT borrowed to pay dividend and give us some details instead of babbling bull-s**ts.”

BT’s debt has increased dramatically over the past two years. During the same period dividend payouts have remained the same as when earnings were higher and the shareprice was as high as £5.

Whichever way you look at it, the dividend is unaffordable and has only been paid out by accruing more debt.

When markets price a share at about £1 and the dividend is 16-17 percent - the market is saying the dividend is unsustainable. There has never been a company in history that has paid out that much and BT won’t be the exception. The most likely outcome of companies in this situation is dividend cancelation- not cuts.

Let’s wait and see on May 7
You know what my predictions are

Dividend - 5p (3.5 + 1.5)
Shareprice to fall to £1
Debt to increase to £20.65 billion
Pension deficit to widen to £10.6 billion

The only thing I’m not sure of is the dividend - I may be wrong there- it might be cancelled altogether.

Toff

The change in IFRS 16 is accounting put another £6.122 billion on top of BT’s debt mountain, bringing the grand total to £18.347 billion total net debt.
Given the debt and pension deficit is now Three times higher that BT’s market capital value I’m amazed they’ve continued to pay dividends over the past two years. There comes a time when they will have to start paying down some of their debt.

From my experience of companies that borrow money to pay dividends, they have a nasty habit of springing a huge rights issue of shareholders and clawing back the equivalent of ten years of dividends. As investors a capital raise is never more than a day away with heavily indebted businesses. So if you are thinking of buying in, salt an extra 50 percent for the rights issue.

Capital raising by cash strapped companies is another direct consequence of the recent economic turmoil. Wetherspoons raised £141 million last week. And ASOS placed 25 percent more shares on the market.

Worryingly for retail investors, both companies raised money through institutional investors. Going behind retail investors backs dilutes their shareholding in the company and gives them no opportunity to retain their stake.

Will BT be the next to announce capital raising and will they shaft shareholders over by doing it exclusively through II, like the two aforementioned companies.

Toff

Ox

‘The 2019 divi is gone, and many Shareholders have abandoned ship already‘

No that’s not right. Majority shareholders are institutional investors and funds. Retail investors are a tiny minority. As with all ftse 100 companies. And I haven’t heard of any Institutional investors bailing out

Toff

As we saw with Shell last week, when a dividend is cut the market reacts brutally. Shell fell about 20 percent over two days after announcing the cut.

While I don’t believe the BT dividend will be cancelled, it would be incredulous if it was maintained at the current rate. I estimate rebasing at 5p per annum to bring it in line with the current shareprice. That will enough for the market to drive BT down to £1; a level I expect it to test by the end of next week. The question is; will the price hold up there or will it go sub £1?

Some will probably remember when the shareprice fell to £3 - a support level that lasted for months. Will it be the same this time at £1?

Toff

Dividend

‘The share price performance since the results has not been great if you are a trader’

It all went wrong for Aviva when the board capitulated to meddling populist politicians looking to put a feather in their cap and allowed them to cancel the dividend.

I was schooled in venture capitalism, and believe me markets detest the idea of private companies being run by public servants. The boards allegiances lie with the shareholders, not dog whistle politicians; we are the ones who own the company and pay them to look after our best interests. We are the ones who take the risk by buying a piece of the company and for that we expect reward.

Aviva is now perceived as a government stooge by the market, the board have shafted shareholders and bowed to dog whistle punks, and for that the market will punish the company.

Worst of all - the market believes the board are no longer in control - which is true - the government are the ones calling the shots now - it’s slimy politicians who will decide if and when and how much Aviva will pay in future dividends.

Toff

Bkk

‘moving forward I could see bt becoming a take over target in future ‘

What prescience!

If Fleecy’s to be believed Warren Buffett is building a huge stake in BT. Poised to make an initial offer of £4 a share - but if pushed he’ll go to £5.

Let’s face it BT is a red hot takeover target. It’s not often the world’s most successful investor has the chance to take over a decadent telecoms company saddled with £18 billion debt, in desperate need of countless billions investment to update an aging infrastructure and with an £8 billion black hole in its pension fund.

Opportunities like that don’t come along more than once in a lifetime - not even for the grand master.

Toff

WestCountry

“Alas all a certain poster has done since Monday is ask where you are”

Yes and no prizes for guessing who it is. It’s that creep who pretends to be a jet pilot with an IQ smaller than his shoe size. I’ve filtered him out because he makes my skin crawl, even when he’s not being potty-mouthed. You can take the prole out of the council estate but you can’t take the council estate out if the prole.

Good trading WestCountry
Looks like there could be some good buying opportunities tomorrow.

Toff

Emma

“Toff - I’m sure govt bonds and credit grade assets improved in value since last valuation”

Well I’d hope so regarding the govt bonds but the investment grade credit carries risk. I know the risk is fairly low compared with a lot of assets but it’d be difficult to believe this section of the fund wouldn’t have taken a haircut during the recent economic turmoil.

Toff

ND

Government bonds 29%
Equities 22%
Investment grade credit 27%
Other growth assets 13%
Property 9%

All those assets will have taken a haircut in the recent market turmoil. Just a ten percent fall in the value of the fund’s assets is enough to blow a £4-5 billion hole in it. I believe the fund has circa £45 billion in assets?

Maybe that’s why Deutsche Bank dropped their target price from 146 to 110 today. I know DB have continually downgraded BT, but I’d imagine they’re using debt metrics to value it.
They certainly don’t share Fool’s opinion that the shareprice is too cheap.

Toff

ND

“Again you are misleading people by stating there will be an increase in pension debt,”

Well I’m assuming BT pension fund is at least partly invested in global stock markets. You don’t need to be a genius to correlate the fall in markets with an increase in the pension deficit.

Not guesswork - just a glaringly obvious conclusion.
It seems to me your passion for BT is so overpowering it’s destroyed your powers of basic reasoning.

Toff