marktime1231
27 Apr 2018
Re: At last Enjoy the warm glow for a bit C'man, easily still a hold for me. As you say there is another 5% on its way. If you are worried put a stop loss under some of your holding, but I wouldn't be thinking of selling unless you have an even better bargain in mind.I have had the same debate with myself ... cash the gains and, for example, gamble that CNCT will have positive interims next week. But SSE is pretty certain to progress towards ex-div while CNCT could go either way.
critterman
27 Apr 2018
Re: At last Well here we are some 10 days since my last post and all of a sudden I'm some 5.5% in the blue. Now I know a profit is a profit but the question is how much higher will they go! I appreciate they may well have been oversold in the past few months and then there is the threat that comes with a labour government (God forbid) which has been widely publicised in the media and certainly had and effect at the time. Also there is the fact that they go ex divi in 3 months which is likely to be around the 5% mark at today's price although I think this latest recovery/rise is too early to have anything to do with the divi.So I guess I'm asking for opinions in the knowledge, of course, that it is I who have to push the button at the end of the day.Take care all
Hydrogen Economy
27 Apr 2018
CMA on Npower-SSE deal The CMA response on SSE Npower together with the RWE Eon deal. Shades of SKY-FOX Disney Comcast stand-off. Hopefully we don't get months or years of trench warfare. H2 [link] and SSE’s domestic divisions could face an in-depth probe after competition officials warned it could lead to higher prices for customers.The Competition and Markets Authority has demanded that the two companies, which have a combined 11.5m customers in the UK, offer concessions before May 3 or else the merger will be referred for a more thorough “phase 2” investigation.The tie-up is complicated by a major deal between German giants RWE and Eon that would effectively hand the latter a one-third stake in the combined SSE/Npower business alongside its ownership of their fellow Big Six supplier Eon UK. Alistair Phillips-Davies, SSE’s chief executive, said: "We remain confident that the proposed merger will deliver benefits for customers and for the energy market as a whole and that we will be able to demonstrate this to the CMA in due course.”The two companies are unlikely to have been taken by surprise by the announcement, given the politically sensitive nature of the energy market. SSE hopes to complete the spin off by the end of the year. The CMA’s Rachel Merelie said: "We know that competition in the energy market does not work as well as it might. However, competition between energy companies gives them a reason to keep prices down."We have found that the proposed merger between SSE Retail and Npower could reduce this competition, and so lead to higher prices for some customers.”
marktime1231
20 Apr 2018
Re: Price rises Scottish Power with a me-too increase of 5.5% an average of £63 for a typical customer. Still in touching distance of the Ofgem cap for vulnerable customers which I am reminded was in the region of £57 ... in an article yesterday which I can't now find, about how any cap on rises in electricity prices out to 2025 will need to allow for rising wholesale prices and what the article called the growing cost of "policy" such as green subsidies.Does that include the super-tariff which has been agreed to pay EDF for building Hinkley Point C ... or do we have that to come on top.I have written to Perry about her knee-jerk response to British Gas's price rise announcement which in effect accuses them and therefore Ofgem and therefore presumably her own government of "unjustified" increases. I pointed out that wholesale prices across 2017 were 11.8% higher than 2016 and have since ramped up. Too busy celebrating the end of coal to reply as yet.SSE biding their time but surely a similar announcement on its way.
critterman
18 Apr 2018
At last I bought a shed load of these back in mid Jan for my ISA. At the time I thought 1307p (including dealing, etc) was a good price and of course true to form, mine that is, they tanked. Well the good news is that I've just got back into the blue this week and to be honest I'm not too sure what the future holds for SSE at the moment. I guess there could be a steady increase up to the divi at the end of July but maybe it's a little too early for that. I think if it rises another 75p ish I might just cut and run.---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- --------You can count yourself as elderly when you sink your teeth into a juicy steak and they stay there.
marktime1231
11 Apr 2018
Price rises Thank you, the full report much more informative about who is saying what. Perry the green Energy Minister on a mission in New York clearly is the government on this issue.CNA make the same observation I did, the rise is no more than the Ofgem cap for vulnerable households, but everyone up in arms because no-one wants prices rising er as fast as wholesale costs. Or council taxes.SSE and others might as well announce their own similar increase and not even bother trying to explain. People will switch if they want. When the Ofgem cap does come along late this year there will be a new dynamic. Fireworks even.
riverside red
11 Apr 2018
Re: Could this be a wee leg up? The BBC did attribute the comments to Claire Perry in their article.www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43711556
marktime1231
11 Apr 2018
Re: Could this be a wee leg up? Excellent eye on the ball. £100M pure profit more than a wee boost, presumably there was a corresponding figure in the provisions column HE rather than this representing 8p free cash flow? Case report not yet up on Bailii but I wonder if Hochtief might appeal higher, after 8 years the legal costs must be a huge factor.Let's not tell Ofgem or they will be demanding flesh. Wrinkled brow yesterday with the BBC quickly reporting "the government" describing CNA's price increase as "unjustified", and a statement that CNA "argued" actually justified the rise as being a result of increased wholesale prices. Who I wonder who is "the government" in this case, someone available at short notice while Parliament is in recess and most MPs enjoying an Easter holiday briefed to pronounce against any and every price increase without necessarily needing to know the facts, and unaware that the increase is in line with govt / Ofgem views on what might be the level of cap anyway. So "the government" recommended increase even on vulnerable customers is also "unjustified". Or did the BBC just make this up with the editor also on holiday so it being what a bored junior reporter thought "the government" was likely to say.
Hydrogen Economy
11 Apr 2018
Re: Could this be a wee leg up? Thanks RRInteresting result and close run thing (2/3 judges in appeal)I guess Hochtief should pick up legal costs so ~108m should drop to PTP and add around 8p on reported EPS (Vs 111p current forecast). Should be excluded from the adjusted EPS as a one-off (hopefully!).It all helpsH2
Reddyreck
10 Apr 2018
Could this be a wee leg up? "SSE Generation has won more than £100m in compensation over the collapse of a tunnel at its Glendoe hydro scheme almost 10 years ago.In August 2009, just months after it had opened Glendoe, near Fort Augustus, was shut down by the rock fall.Operations did not resume at the scheme until almost three years later.SSE took legal action against engineering contractor Hochtief, but lost. The energy company has now won compensation in an appeal.In 2016, Lord Woolman, a judge at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, ruled that the main part of SSE Generation's claim had failed"[link]
marktime1231
10 Apr 2018
Re: Price rises would it be cynical or sensible for the energy retailers to get a price rise in before Ofgem can bring down a cap?Actually CNA have proposed a general SVT increase in line with Ofgem's cap for vulnerable customers eg + £60. SSE might be pulling Ofgem's tail to do anything different. nPower could though since it has some financial performance to catch up.It will be more interesting to observe how the smaller companies respond if as I suspect they have been carrying losses from a surge in wholesale prices over Winter, having poached new business from the big 6 on fixed cheap tariffs.
Kool Keith
10 Apr 2018
Price rises British Gas increasing prices by 5.5% due to wholesale and increased government costs.Will the rest follow....
marktime1231
06 Apr 2018
Innogy deal firmer on news that SSE have hired a new CEO to run the demerged, combined retail energy business. Katie Bickerstaff from Dixons CPW so retail and integration skills, but not an obvious choice for what is effectively a large scale billing operation.SSE are clearly determined and confident the business restructuring will go ahead. Coupled with positive news last week that the target eps to sustain the dividend will be met, the addition of a former EON exec to the board, and Corbyn continuing to render himself unelectable. I have topped up my holding today.
Norman Barrington
28 Mar 2018
Re: Utilities rising Lupo: "TM's star is shining. " Blimey Lupo, she looks and sounds more like an annoyed Headmistress sounding off in assembly, in her usual wardrobe malfunction get-up!
Lupo di mare
28 Mar 2018
Utilities rising I wonder why. Could it be because JC's being shown up for what he is, while at the same time TM's star is shining.
