RE: Velo31 Jul 2015 11:44
Hi QElvis. Yes, I'm aware that the financial media's view is 'SLIGHTLY better than expected'. I read the results early first thing (well the first 50% overall company results, ran out of time so, skipped the departmental breakdowns) and then went to see how my personal view compared to the financial analysts.
It's my personal opinion, that's all.
Profits are down "only" 32% when they were expected to be slightly worse. So to me, It's like realising you've lost £35 and run back along the pavement to try and retrieve it. You find some of it and return to your friends, beaming and exclaiming:
"Well that was slightly better than expected. I only lost £32, not £35, because I found £3 of it".
And whilst it's 100% true, as you say that no one can predict the future, every time we say "I wasn't expecting that"
-as you did :) then that too in cold logic Spock terms, is a surprise realisation that events have turned out differently to a subconscious forecast of the future made privately to yourself.
Everytime we cross the road we make a prediction that we "expect" to arrive safely at our destination. In other words, it's a prediction, although we wouldn't say that, but rather an expectation.
Yet a 9/11 in terms of deaths occurs on British roads every year and has done for decades all the way back to the 1950's, year in, year out, unrelenting. But we 'expect' or "predict" that those deaths will probably happen to someone else, not us.
Even travelling in a car we have an expectation of arriving at our destination. We don't say we predict arriving safely, we say we have every reason to expect to arrive safely - in other words - a prediction, a forecast of the future. So by saying you didn't expect 3% divi, you are just as as guilty as Zak Mir, the CEO of RR, or anyone of us who expresses an possibility of a future outcome, rather than be seen to making predictions.
When we invest in a share, even for the very long term , we are speculating. But we can't bear to be called gamblers, so we say we are investors not speculators. In fact the only difference between everyday speculators and every day long term investors - is the time frame involved.
We all constantly make subconscious predictions of the future, even when we are just ticking along with no expectations at all, come what may - because that in itself, when you deconstruct it to it's bare bones is in itself a forecast, a Mystic Meg prediction if you like. There is no escaping the human condition.
Of course it must be said, the forgoing is nothing more than my personal opinion.
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