Sky bid...

[Lootman]

So the Sky SP is around £9.80 and the agreed bid price is £10.75. On the face of it this looks like a more or less guaranteed way of getting a rerun of around 9% p.a.

What's the catch?

The deal falls foul of the regulators, or some other external event renders the takeover dead on arrival. There are usually conditions in any deal whereby the acquirer can pull out, sometimes paying a fee, sometimes not.

Now, if the current SP were ABOVE the offer price, then the market would be expecting a higher subsequent offer. But since this deal is apparently "agreed", that is no longer priced in - only the risk of the deal failing.

The Sky share price then sinks back to the miserable level it was at just a few days ago, and you lose a packet. Arbitrage funds do this kind of thing for a living. You need to know what your edge is over them.

[88V8]

Sold today.
Sky was purchased with the capital that I salvaged from the wreck of Tesco, and is/was nicely up. No divi for 2017 if the bid goes through, and a plummet in SP if it doesn't. Time to move on.

Topped up SSE whose divi is uncovered - a leap of faith that they can continue their balancing act - and NRR New Rover Retail, a REIT favoured by Woodford, which has just this week been promoted to the 250; yielding 5.2% covered 2.0. Quarterly payer, which is nice.

This leaves me something in the kitty which I am tempted to put into a top-up of SDRC Schroders non-voting, but I already have too many financials. Otoh the Italian Govt's planned illegal rescue of Monte di Paschi gives some comfort that the EU is still determined to kick the banking can down the road.

In recent times I have tended towards sweet-shopping and now have what I regards as too many holdings, hence the top-ups this time.

V8

[idpickering]

In recent times I have tended towards sweet-shopping and now have what I regards as too many holdings, hence the top-ups this time.

V8

Hi 88V8, care to show us your holdings please? It's always nice to see where other HYPers are at in their HYP construction/use.

Regards,

Ian.

[Mentallurgist]

Have to admit I sold today aswell.

Re-invested in SSE and VOD.

Happy xmas to one and all.

[Raptor]

Topped up SSE whose divi is uncovered - a leap of faith that they can continue their balancing act -

V8

I show forecast and current cover as 1.3. Ok I prefer 1.5 and above but do you have a different reading?

Raptor.

[toofast2live]

With the shares now under £10 the city is saying the "Dirty Digger" isn't going to win.

[88V8]

SSE - I have earnings £46mio, divi £89mio. Just been listening to Words & Music, the Philosopher's stone. Perhaps SSE have one.

Ian... tables, arrrgh. Beyond my attention span perhaps and I see there now seem to be two versions, not been paying attention as I have a new automotive toy which is sponging my time.
Maybe in March, which is my year end.

V

[Breelander]

Ian... tables, arrrgh. Beyond my attention span perhaps and I see there now seem to be two versions...

One is identical to the familiar <pre></pre> method of old, just use square brackets instead: [pre], not <pre>

[idpickering]

SSE - I have earnings £46mio, divi £89mio. Just been listening to Words & Music, the Philosopher's stone. Perhaps SSE have one.

Ian... tables, arrrgh. Beyond my attention span perhaps and I see there now seem to be two versions, not been paying attention as I have a new automotive toy which is sponging my time.
Maybe in March, which is my year end.

V

Thanks for coming back on this 88V8. I look forward to seeing your post.

And thank you Bree, for explaining the tables in plain English.

Regards,

Ian

[Gengulphus]

Ian... tables, arrrgh. Beyond my attention span perhaps and I see there now seem to be two versions...

One is identical to the familiar <pre></pre> method of old, just use square brackets instead: [pre], not <pre>

There is another difference: because TMF's post input window used a monospaced (typewriter-style) font and TLF's doesn't, on TLF one really has to prepare a post that uses the [pre] method in Notepad or something similar, not in the site's post input window. It's still the best method to do one-off not-too-big-and-not-required-to-be-too-polished tables IMHO.

For simple tables, the [table] method doesn't have that disadvantage, but does have the disadvantage of requiring one to remember some non-obvious stuff about what to input. It also looks better, can accommodate more information in a given width, and is better suited to automatic generation by a spreadsheet, and so in my view really comes into its own for bigger tables that one is going to post multiple times - for instance, my GDHYP portfolio listings, for which I now just have to update the GDHYP master spreadsheet's input information (e.g. which shares it's bought, which I'm vetoing, current prices and forecast dividends) and then copy one cell from it into my post to get the table. But getting to that position did require a moderate amount of work writing and debugging the spreadsheet formulae, and some ingenuity to work around some idiosyncrasies of the tables it produces - worthwhile in my view for something I intend to use again and again, but not for something more casual.

And there is actually also the [code] method, which is like the [pre] method in most ways, but puts it in a separate, scrollable 'frame'. I haven't yet come across a case where I regard it as preferable to the [pre] method, but such cases probably do exist!

Gengulphus

[Breelander]

I haven't yet come across a case where I regard it as preferable to the [pre] method, but such cases probably do exist!

The only case I can think of is where the table is so tall you'd want to have a fixed header and/or footer and a scrollable table. Before [pre] was available I had experimented with the table from my 2015 report along these lines.

This is how my HYP looked at the close of business on 24th December 2015.

Code: Select all

                                          Weight   Weight  Yield   Yield
Share               Epic    Sector         by Cap.  by div* Hist*   F/cast*

Code: Select all

Persimmon           PSN.L   constr&mat     6.4%     4.5%    4.8%    3.1%
BAe Systems         BA.     aero/defence   5.5%     5.2%    4.2%    4.2%
BT Group            BT.A    tel.fix        5.4%     3.4%    2.8%    2.8%
Reckitt Benckiser   RB.     H/hold goods   5.3%     2.5%    2.1%    2.1%
Aviva               AV.     ins. life      4.9%     4.1%    3.7%    3.7%
United Utilities    UU.     util gas/water 4.7%     4.4%    4.1%    4.1%
Lloyds 9.75% pref.  LLPD    fixed int.     4.6%     7.2%    6.8%    6.8%
British Land        BLND    REITs          4.6%     3.8%    3.5%    3.6%
SSE plc             SSE     util.elec.     4.4%     5.8%    5.8%    5.8%
Marks & Spencer     MKS     retail gen.    4.2%     3.9%    4.1%    4.1%
Diageo              DGE     beverage       4.0%     2.8%    3.0%    3.0%
Glaxo Smithkline    GSK     pharm/biotec   3.9%     5.2%    5.8%    5.8%
Unilever            ULVR    food prod/proc 3.9%     2.7%    3.0%    3.0%
Electrocomponents   ECM     support serv.  3.7%     4.1%    5.0%    5.0%
Vodaphone           VOD     tel.mob        3.6%     4.3%    5.2%    5.2%
Halfords            HFD     retail gen.    3.4%     3.8%    5.0%    5.0%
Carillion           CLLN    support serv.  3.4%     4.3%    5.6%    5.6%
Lloyds Group        LLOY    banks          3.2%     2.5%    2.0%    3.4%
Shell               RDSB    oil&gas prod.  3.2%     5.8%    7.9%    7.9%
IMI                 IMI     indust. eng.   3.1%     3.0%    4.3%    4.3%
Pearson             PSON    media          2.3%     3.5%    6.8%    6.8%
RSA Insurance Gp.   RSA     ins. gen       2.2%     0.6%    1.3%    1.3%
Rio Tinto           RIO.L   mining         2.0%     3.3%    7.3%    7.3%
Centrica            CNA     util gas/water 2.0%     2.5%    5.5%    5.5%
Amec Foster Wheeler AMFW    oil equip/serv 1.4%     3.2%    9.8%    9.8%
De La Rue           DLAR    support serv.  1.4%     1.8%    5.6%    5.6%
Sainsbury (J)       SBRY    retail fd/drg  1.2%     1.2%    4.6%    4.6%
Tesco               TSCO    retail fd/drg  1.1%     0.0%    0.0%    0.0%
Barclays             BARC   banks          1.0%     0.6%    2.9%    2.9%

Code: Select all

Current Yield*: 24 Dec 2015       median:  3.58%            4.46%   4.39%

[Breelander]

One other point when using [table] or [pre]. Its a bad idea to put a lot of text after a table of either sort. If there is a horizontal scroll bar needed (as would be on some small tablet/phone screens) it is found at the bottom of the post. On such small screens that may be so far down that you can't see the table and the scroll bar at the same time (so effectively useless).