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Regarding a May election, May 2nd has been touted as the date it would happen - as it would coincide with local/mayoral elections on that day.
If it is going to be May 2nd then there needs to be 25 working days between parliament dissolving and the election, which means with Easter coming up that March 27th is the latest date the election can be called.
Two other dates to look out for are March 13 and March 20th - that's when we find out firstly what January's GDP growth (or not) was and secondly what February's inflation figures look like, whatever the numbers are in both cases they could feed into any decision Rishi Sunak makes.
To me the budget didn't look like it it was being aimed at quickly pumping things up and grabbing headlines ahead of a snap May election, personally October looks more likely, but what do I know....
As for the government awarding contracts close to a general election, there's nothing stopping them from spending the money, if it has been budgeted for then it exists to be spent. In any case there's no legal basis for a "mandate" that is something that governments can claim on the back of having campaigned on something giving them the political clout to carry out whatever was promised. It's also useful to get legislation through the House of Lords - the latter can hold up but not vote down government bills if they were manifesto commitments - anything else is fair game. To use a current example the Lords could vote down the Rwanda bill as it didn't appear in the 2019 Tory manifesto, but they couldn't if the idea had been floated in the manifesto.
The ex-dividend date is irrelevant - there is no dividend to pay.
When it does look at the Financial Diary tab above - that has all the relevant dates.
You have to view these figures two ways - both as a set of annual numbers which show significant progress from the pandemic years and secondly against the targets set at the CMD last November.
In the first case they look to be achieving the first - putting a secure foundation under the share-price - the balance sheet and forward order book look very robust. On the second front they are on target to achieve the 2027 targets.
Only negative is no dividend - but that was expected (I'm allowed to hope...) and in any case it would be very low and I'd rather debt was paid down instead.
All in all I'm very happy with the results which suggest that there's more to come.
So pretty much in line with expectations - it makes sense to buy back shares while the price is low. I'd have liked the dividend to be a tad higher though.
Most of the metrics are slightly higher than forecast with a reduction in profit down to restructuring costs. But savings over the next two years should feed through to the bottom line. However cutting costs is one thing, growing the business after you've taken an axe to things is a different matter. Venkat's sales job today is to convince the market that he's got this in hand.
Where the SP goes today will depend on how well the restructuring programme is received. There's also a separate RNS announcing the formation of five new divisions which should focus the business a bit more coherently.
Congrats...you don't go bust making a profit.
I bought in at similar levels to you but I'm holding out for £1.60ish - but that looks a while off with no movement on interest rates likely for a month or two at least - FWIW I think we'll see a firm stick from the BoE with inflation going in the right direction but not fast enough to warrant a cut. The target of 2% inflation has to look sustainable for the BoE to cut rates and we aren't there yet. But it will happen at some point this year...just when?
At the current share-prices it means the div yield will go up to ca 6.5% from 5.5%. I assume they've run this via their management consultants are confident that it'll help to shove the share price up.
I assume that there'll be another buy back which if the sp remains at these lowish levels makes some sense.
The Dow closed up 500 points last night, the Fed seemed to be signalling that there'll be three rate cuts in the US next year and no more in the immediate future. Other more dovish thinkers are expecting up to six interest rate cuts in the US.
We'll see no interest rate rises today by the BoE in conclusion I think Mr A will see, albeit slightly belatedly, a finish north of 144p and so will the rest of us.
Reading a variety of sources over the weekend the ECB, Fed Reserve and BoE are expected to leave rates unchanged but we may get a few hints as to when interest rates are going to start easing off, but this won't happen until the spring.
So, tomorrow/US inflation figures could be the most important news of the week in terms of how it shifts the markets . The consensus is that a soft landing is expected in the US - certainly all the US indices are having a decent end to the year, but we aren't really that this side of the Atlantic, or at least not yet.
A mostly meaningless article from the MF - the central point though is accurate, the SP is at multi-year highs so the easy money has been made (does this really need to be pointed out though?), which means from here it's the patient and slightly riskier money that's left.
Besides that it's a poor article pointing out nothing of any note - the free cash flow bringing the debt pile down and the return to normality after the pandemic years are the reason why the SP has rebounded plus the market in its infinite wisdom clearly has faith in the management going forward to achieve their targets.
The current estimate is that each SMR will cost ca £1.8bn to build and they'll be sold at ca £2bn or if you prefer we could have around 10 of these things for the same cost as one Hinckley Point C) and in theory get collectively significantly more power...but these are current costs/estimates and it depends on what the actual costs are.
The plan is that they'll be built on-site by RR and then shipped out meaning they could be a good export opportunity for the UK. To me it doesn't make sense to drop their ownership below 50% as they'll lose control of the SMR Ltd company, although presumably it'll be built in to the sale of their stake that they remain the manufacturer.
Regarding the holdings in the SMR - I'm reasonably sure on the RR and QIA holdings (my research) but not certain of exactly how much the other partners hold. I think the idea was that RR will acquire UKRI's investment presumably for a fee allowing the government to get their investment capital back.
Currently Rolls Royce own ca 70% of the SMR, Qatar own 10% (which they acquired from RR), the other 20% is owned by BNF (British Nuclear Fuels), Constellation (a US based energy provider) and UKRI Innovate UK (who are providing the research investment).
I think Constellation and UKRI Innovate own 10% each but I'm not 100% certain about that.
I have no idea what the SP will after CMD - the stock market sometimes likes to clobber companies who produce good results on the grounds that they aren't very good results.
I doubt we'll see a dividend - but news that one is coming next year will be welcome.
My prediction though is that RR may have kept up their sleeves one or two decent orders to be part of the announcement, maybe the much mooted Turkish Airlines order.
UK inflation would suggest another pause in interest rates with talk of when the first reduction will be made. From scanning reports inflation has mostly fallen thanks to global energy prices falling year on year, food inflation is still at just over 10%.
Also the Chancellor's autumn statement and next year's budget are expected to see a few tax cuts.
What this means for Barclays - to get this on topic - is hopefully fewer defaults on mortgages, loans and credit cards etc, but it does put some pressure on NIMs, from here t'management need to demonstrate that they can grow the business and the profit margins through good decision making and not by exploiting higher interest rates.
Are RR engines predominantly used on airbus or is it a huge variety on who uses which engines?
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The choice is the customer's - they usually want the same engine to be used across similar planes in their fleet, eg they might have Boeing 737s and Airbus 320s - similar type of planes but with one engine supplier. That way the engineers/mechanics etc get to know one engine rather than two or three and they only have to stock replacement parts from one manufacturer.
I doubt that RR are over-pricing their jet engines, most likely what they are currently doing is not discounting quite as much as they did over the last couple of years.
If so then it has to be good for profit margins but also a statement that they have a good order book.
Chances of reaching £1.50 over the next few weeks?
Reasonable to good in my opinion but it depends on a few factors outside of Barc's control looking good eg UK/US GDP growth, inflation and interest rates, market sentiment, the general political environment etc.
The collapse to current levels is not really justifiable on the merits of Barclays as an investment case, they are going to churn £7.5bn plus for this financial year, the div yield is good. As ever be patient...