El_Kel
08 Feb 2019
SSE loses 160,000 customers "Energy giant SSE…seen a sharp drop in customer numbers and has cut its full-year earnings forecast. It said it had lost 160,000 customers in the final three months of last year, leaving it with 5.88 million accounts. …the company said that earnings per share…would be 6p lower than previously expected, and in a range of 64-69p, compared with its November forecast of 70-75p." [link]
marktime1231
04 Feb 2019
Windfarm asset sales Slipped under my radar on Friday, well done the FT for its added value reporting, SSE has agreed to sell wind farm assets for £635M. Stated to be part of its strategy to focus on … er renewables, last September it was buying new wind assets, so I don’t quite get it, but the intended debt reduction and small quick share buy back will be welcome before final dividend. Time for some clever broker analyst types to reappraise SSE, in light of all the recent developments, but things are moving so fast I wonder if we will be hearing of new plans to calve the retail business soon. In the meantime what can we expect in SSE financials - sorry, should I have read the 5 new year plan - still committed to 97.5p dividends this year and it indicated the annual dividend would trim to c. 80p in the next two years irrespective of cancelling the nPower wedding. If that is an honourable safely deliverable promise then SSE is worth 1350p at least, everyone is being too gloomy and fearful of far fetched risks. Hope so, and I hope to see this rising back to normal by the Summer. Does it all hinge on the next price cap?
Will
21 Dec 2018
SSE plc to sell 50% stake in SSE Enterprise Telecoms to Infracapital Investigate: SSE plc to sell 50% stake in SSE Enterprise Telecoms to Infracapital Looks like a good deal to me. Telecoms infrastructure is a saturated market and prices can only go down in the long-term.
El_Kel
27 Nov 2018
Director buys Two x director buys last week, reasonable enough at £33k and £56k. [link]
Kool_Keith
20 Nov 2018
Sse warning Morning @PrefInvestor1, Moneyam you say, I think I looked at that site, will revisit when get chance as the more can track in 1 place the better (thank you). CGI as previously said I needed some overseas investment(s) so not too worried about short (he hopes) term movements but would be nice to kick on again. ADYEN, Think I may have mentioned previously it’s no longer on my radar to buy and looking at current price I’m still in the same mind, I love a gamble on the horses but my investment money needs to (try) be better looked after, can’t believe I’ve just said that on this board of all boards AA bounces about a bit but not near enough to trigger my sell order and won’t be this side of Christmas. Mentioning ADYEN, hope Monty doing ok with this and his FAANG saw apple down 20% since peaking and cancelling an alarming quantity of production of their new phones. Goodwin is coming back into my price target range of sub 2600 (2500 ish ideally) so might be have to dust off the buy button, sooner than I thought. Have a good day.
PrefInvestor1
19 Nov 2018
Sse warning Hi @akis1999, long time since I’ve heard from you. I thought you were likely another old time iii poster who had left and gone elsewhere. Re stamp duty, yes I am aware that there is no ceiling on this - though it doesn’t apply to some investment trusts and ETFs at all which is useful I have found. My earlier posts on this topic were aimed at exposing why I typically invest £3,000-£6,000 in any one investment - as I find at this level that the costs (commission, stamp duty and spread) are not too damaging. I wouldn’t want to invest a smaller amount or the effect on your average price would be significant. I remember your £15,000 figure from our previous discussions. This completely solves that problem - but brings into play the single stock risk issue. Ie where a sudden unexpected 10% drop in the stock price (as occurred with sse) becomes very expensive. What is happening with sse you ask, well to be honest I am not 100% sure as I haven’t been following itbthat closely (I sold last Thursday) We had the big SP drop on the profit warning in September and then it looked like the innigy merger was falling through and the sp actually rallied. Now I believe the companies are in negotiation as to the way forward ?. I see there was a further profit warning just a few days ago, see article below:- cityam.com – 14 Nov 18 SSE blames high gas prices for 40 per cent collapse in profits SSE saw profits suffer a 41 per cent drop this morning, driven by “persistently high†gas prices, as the energy firm cast doubt over its merger with What with all of that plus the new ofgem price cap there is little to celebrate i fear… ATB Pref
PrefInvestor1
19 Nov 2018
Sse warning Hi @kool_keith, Well US markets in turmoil, trade wars, trump and now brexit is coming home to roost. I had been hoping that markets were making a recovery when the FTSE reached ~7150 but who knows what will happen now. The effect on housebuilders and utilities was I think predictable. I sold all my housebuilders before the budget, which actually did them some good and they rise afterwards, but got well and truly clobbered last Thursday. Utilities had been showing their defensive qualities, but took a hit last Thursday - suspect it’s the Corbyn threat ?. I had stop losses set there and so sold out before the wirst of tge damage. UK financials (banks, insurers and asset managers) also significantly damaged and I personally took a bit of s hit there. Shoukd probably have stop lossed these as well and bought back lower + but didn’t do it. I have been continuing to pursue my strategy of moving out of most single stocks and into investment trusts and dividend ETFs. I have 7 dividendvETFs now (iapd, idvy, iukd, sedy, zilk, zweu and zwuk). All have a 4.5+% yield, some 5% and some 6%. From my perspective they also offer diversity, low cost and overseas exposure. I added SEDY and ZWEU last week, they did well when the £ dropped on Thursday. I have stopped using investing.com to provide my real-time portfolio data. Im using moneyam instead now , note that this has live prices for cgi and pretty well everything else in the ftse allshare as far as I can see - including all my investment trusts. Critically it has live prices for all if my ETFs which investing.com does not sadly. Sorry that CGI is not doing so well, today’s us markets have probably caused further damage I’m afraid. But the stock is pretty resilient and will hopefully come back, hope so for your sake anyway. ADYEN, aa and sse not doing great either - but you don’t need me to tell you that I’m sure. At least with the ETFs you no longer have the single stock risk to worry about. I have looked at LSE and advfn as other discussion board alternatives but don’t like either really. LSE is closest to the old iii style but has hideous intrusive adverts. Advfn has some knowledgeable posters (on caml and RAvp in particular) but is visually pretty hideous and not easy to use. Neither appeal to me I have to say. Anyway ATB Pref
Akis1999
19 Nov 2018
Sse warning PrefInvestor1: in large quantities that stamp duty Stamp duty is % and does not have a ceiling as far as I know, therefore you eat the 0.5% no matter what. BTW my typical investment in a stock is around £15,000 min with and currently hold 8 stocks only and a lot of cash (55%). I have £25K currently in SSE and my break even exit price is 1232 (accounting for the divs etc). SSE one of my worst purchases. It is a company I have always disliked, I always thought it was overpriced and not at all like NG. and maybe UU. I know at the beginning of the year UU’s chairman/CEO sold out his shares for 850? maybe, it was a clear indication for things to come. A couple of weeks or so ago I got out of UU with a small profit, which is great, but SSE is a drag. I really hate this stock and do not understand why I ever bought it. Now it seems the merger will not go through ? Has anyone got anything to say on this? Where are we going from here?
Kool_Keith
13 Nov 2018
Sse warning Hi, I wish I could say I’ve found a new place for investment talk/ideas but sadly not. It was so much easier before when looking at a share topic this new way I can’t get my head around and basically I click on my ‘K’ top right and click Pref to see what you’ve been saying and read the topic in question. CGI not going to lie, was happy when much higher in profit than I am now, but other than Verzion I’ve no direct exposure to foreign markets so happy to hold CGI (wish could track on investing.com). Zilk is on the tracker on investing.com to follow as in Caml, Adyen is also still on there but only for fun I’ve now come to the conclusion this isn’t for me especially in these up and down times. Spire is also on the tracker! this is currently down (had a small bounce recently) and could be interesting. I recently had an op at a Spire Hospital on the NHS, if I went private (checked as was thinking of it) it was over £5k (day op) and the surgeon had a very busy day. So much easier in a rising market to buy anything you fancy, but when it’s like it is at present it’s harder to press the buy button. As for the 2 new ideas, goodwin much more likely of the 2 to get some of the cash I’m reluctant to let go of.
PrefInvestor1
13 Nov 2018
Sse warning Hi @kool_keith, Have you too almost abandoned these boards in favour of some other place ?. If so where if you dont mind me asking. There are some features of this new system that I really like, the ease of posting different types of link, images etc. is good as is the editing capability. But it has lost the “string of small posts about a particular stock†type theme. No-one much creates new topics but just adds to an existing one (like I am doing now) which is OK for conversing with a specific individual but doesnt provide the facility to browse everything thats being said on a given stock. I have no plans to move though. Ive looked at LSE and tried ADVFN and the latter I dont like that much. Looks like Monty has probably given up on these boards, no response to my topic that I created to see if he was still around. Yes CGI seems pretty resilient really, seems to bounce back after the big shocks that the US markets are prone to. I have thought about investing over there again either SMT, PCT, JUSC or yes CGI. But I always come back to the fact that I really invest for the dividends and I really dont like putting my money into these growth only investments. They go up and then fallback again and you are left with nothing, or even negative sometimes. Might be OK for traders but it doesnt appeal to me that much. Its also good for getting some USD exposure, but fortunately there are other ways to achieve that. SSE almost made it to 1200 a while back, then fell about 4% again one day when there was some panic over their merger partner Innogy (?) who posted some bad results as I recall. I was thinking you had done well with your averaging down, until that happened. I see its back up to 116x again today though. Not sure about your 2 new ideas, havent investigated them though. Getting paranoid about single stock risks these days. You will have seen BATS get clobbered the other day. Still of the view that ETFs and Investment Trusts are the way to go myself, my plan is to slowly liquidate many of my single stocks (keeping a few trusted names only) and move them over to these types of investment. Good luck with your investment plans though and keep in touch !!. ATB Pref
PrefInvestor1
08 Nov 2018
Sse warning Hi @kool_keith, Not heard from you in a while, hope you are well. Keeping your head down during the horrible month of October maybe ?. At least we’ve had a good few days now, my portfolio has almost recovered but not quite. SSE seems to be going pretty well, 1186 as I write this and your averaging down must be working. I didnt in the end but did make two badly judged moves buying AV. at just over 440 and SLA at just over 300. Both seemed like good ideas at the time. Not too worried about them though, pretty confident that they will make a comeback when the market is a bit calmer. I saw that CGI had dropped from 1500+ to the low 1300s given the big October US correction. But I expect its making a comeback now after the election. I am going to try and pickup some more FSFL which are XD today and some more NESF when they go XD next week. Really like these renewable stocks myself. Typically they have dropped a lot on and just after XD so I have a low ball limit order set which Ill keep an eye on during the day. ATB Pref
PrefInvestor1
10 Oct 2018
Sse warning Hi Again @kool_keith, Well glad I sold those US ITs yesterday (in fact I had meant to do it the day before but my daughter came round with the grandaughter and so I didnt have any time. In total the ITs were just in profit had I sold that day, cost me ~£200 not selling that day. Still they have been utterly clobbered today to the tune of about £600 so just as well I acted when I did !. US Tech absolutely hammered - had to happen sometime I guess, things cant go straight up forever. I also sold 1/6th of my VOD at 155 and set a stop loss to sell another 1/3rd if they drop below 150 - that will half my exposure at the expense of taking the loss. Today was going REALLY well till the US markets opened, I was up 4 digits and cruising. But as usual the US markets spoilt my fun and Ive end up down another 0.3%, could be much worse I guess. Hope you survived. Hey you can buy ADYEN for sub 600 now… (not for me, I really hate these volatile growth stocks). ATB Pref
PrefInvestor1
09 Oct 2018
Sse warning Hi @kool_keith, Well been a pretty horrible three days hasnt it. My portfolio is down about 2.5% in that time, with yes VOD a major culprit. Have sold all my US investment trusts today to take some money off the table and because I think they are most vulnerable to further losses. Am thinking about buying some more AV. if it gets down to about 455. Guessing they are down because of the CEO Mark Wilson leaving as well as everything else. Really unsure of we have seen the end of this drop in the markets, hope so !!. ATB Pref
Kool_Keith
09 Oct 2018
Sse warning Hi @PrefInvestor1 just seeing how your portfolio is performing this week and if you’ve purchased Aviva today? Tempted to top up myself there but then there’s Vod, as well as many others that are dropping like a stone at the moment. My portfolio dropping all the time so in no rush to buy anything myself (just) yet. Its so much easier in a rising market haha.
PrefInvestor1
28 Sep 2018
Sse warning Good morning @kool_keith. Bought into SLA this morning at 307.8, but still dropping ATM. Charts would seem to indicate support at 304 so hopefully wont drop much more, but you can never catch an exact bottom. Yield of 6.96% so pretty good if the price holds up. Got a subscription offer to buy some more JLEN today at 102 (a renewable energy stock) current price is ~105 with a yield of 6.22%. Going to top up on a few of those to spend what cash I have lying around. Might also reduce my UU which being a water stock is in JCs crosshairs. Kier getting kicked to death again by the shorters over the last few days. SAGA did well on what looked like very mediocre results to me (up 4.68% !), but I’m not complaining. Probably ought to sell but I wont, 3p dividend coming soon. ADYEN just gone over 700 euros I see. AA down another 2% . Overall a down day today though for me anyway. Off to watch the ryder cup now. ATB Pref
