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Pearson January Trading Update

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idpickering
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Pearson January Trading Update

#277762

Postby idpickering » January 16th, 2020, 7:12 am


idpickering
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Re: Pearson January Trading Update

#277777

Postby idpickering » January 16th, 2020, 9:10 am

I used to hold these in my HYP years ago, but not any more. I hold WPP from the sector. PSON are down 10% as of now. Anyone tempted? Not me tbh.

Ian.

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Re: Pearson January Trading Update

#277786

Postby tjh290633 » January 16th, 2020, 9:36 am

I still have them, Ian. The yield is too low for them to be topped up. It seems to be de rigeur for shares to fall a lot on trading updates. Let's see what the results are in due course.

TJH

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Re: Pearson January Trading Update

#277807

Postby idpickering » January 16th, 2020, 10:25 am

tjh290633 wrote:I still have them, Ian. The yield is too low for them to be topped up. It seems to be de rigeur for shares to fall a lot on trading updates. Let's see what the results are in due course.

TJH


Thanks for your input Terry. Good luck with your holdings.

Ian.

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Re: Pearson January Trading Update

#278030

Postby Arborbridge » January 17th, 2020, 9:39 am

I still have them too. They were on my sell list from 2018 and I nearly sold them later at around the 1000p mark. I did not follow that impulse, but in hindsight that was a poor decision. PSON was not the "same" company I invested in and I should have sold because of that change, when I had the chance. PSON is all change, experimental and up in the air - not a boring stable HYP type company, it seems.

If it ever comes right, it will be another long hard slog. LTBH often means waiting long enough for one's mistakes to recover.

Arb.

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Re: Pearson January Trading Update

#278043

Postby Darka » January 17th, 2020, 10:06 am

Never fall in love with a share, it's never to late to get out.

I sold in 2016 at £7.58 as it was no longer the company I bought in to.

Seems it's at risk of dropping out the FTSE too.

"Pearson fighting for Footsie future: Share price falls another 9%, profit forecasts slashed again as top exec quits the business"

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mar ... lls-9.html

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Re: Pearson January Trading Update

#278192

Postby johnstevens77 » January 17th, 2020, 5:27 pm

I sold today to realise a capital loss to offset gains (unsheltered). Most of the proceeds will go to top up Shell in my ISA. Remaining cash will go into Shell in next year's ISA. Another consideration was to reduce my unsheltered income. I too bought Pearson when it was a different company and was not too happy when they sold the FT and Penguin. Should have sold then I suppose.

john

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Re: Pearson January Trading Update

#278299

Postby widowandorphan3 » January 18th, 2020, 12:34 am

I worked for Pearson when it was the most gloriously random conglomerate, with interests ranging from Penguin Books, the FT, right over to Alton Towers, Warwick Castle, The Bill, a French Vineyard - with a chunk of Lazard Brothers and Sky TV to boot, and Lord alone knows what else. It was designed that way as the founding family didn't a. want to sell its big stake b. didn't want all its eggs in one basket.

And it kinda, sorta worked. But was so against the emerging anti-conglom ethos that much of this was progressively sold off to focus on education, a sector I note wasn't even in the companies above mentioned, though had always been present via Longman and a later purchase of Simon & Schuster's education interests. Mr Market and the management went "hey, education is a growth business, right? so let's do just that."

Now I accept that it's had reasonably generous dividends over the years, but the fact is the PSON SP is where it was in March 1997. I knew John Fallon and thought he was a decent guy, but the fact is that technology has decisively disrupted the education business and PSON is too small to play a decisive role, I fear. And PSON has been a totally dud investment, which I am sorry to say as it was a great company when I was there and there were some great people. And must be regarded as a risky investment today.

WaO

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Re: Pearson January Trading Update

#278313

Postby Arborbridge » January 18th, 2020, 9:06 am

I'm not sure PSON has been a "totally dud investment" - that surely depends on when you bought or sold. Right now it certainly looks pretty dire - totally dud - but it was pretty good until the shake up which we all regret.

The only question is: what now?

I doubt we can learn anything from this chart, but looking back, there was an amazing spike in price, thought I'm not sure why. And one can see how progress was far from dud until the sad event of the re-arranging the business. You can also see why I rue reversing my decision to sell when it topped 1000p - could it have been my last chance?

Image

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Re: Pearson January Trading Update

#278345

Postby MDS1951 » January 18th, 2020, 11:31 am

I held Pearson shares for quite a long time, and they did well while Dame Marje was in charge. They have not done so well since she retired from the company. In January 2019 the share price was at a reasonably decent level, so I took advantage of that to sell at £9.58 a share and escape with a reasonable profit. That looks like a good move with their main business under pressure now and the share price rather less at £5.89 than I sold them for; I sold them mainly because I had got fed up with the profit warnings.

Back in 2012 I bought shares in RELX at an average price of £5.49 so that it could double with Pearson in approximately the same line of business. Those have done very well, and I was lucky to buy them when I did.

MDS1951

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Re: Pearson January Trading Update

#278353

Postby Breelander » January 18th, 2020, 12:00 pm

Arborbridge wrote:...there was an amazing spike in price, thought I'm not sure why...


Look at the date of the spike. That was the 'Internet Bubble'. Now look at the same spike in any other stock that could be seen as 'new technology'. Exactly the same spike can be seen for Vodafone, for example.



(PS: Windows 7? Really? :D)

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Re: Pearson January Trading Update

#278658

Postby Arborbridge » January 20th, 2020, 7:21 am

Breelander wrote:


(PS: Windows 7? Really? :D)


OT for a moment:-

Yes, really, and I'm still reluctant to update! I have 10 on a laptop and can't see the point, but the disincentive is the sheer effort of reinstalling everything and the fear that it might not work. My my personal POV and the behaviour of the OS, I see no reason to change: I don't think the sky will fall in if I don't do anything for the time being.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I guess any discussion should be somewhere else or in a PM.

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Re: Pearson January Trading Update

#278659

Postby Arborbridge » January 20th, 2020, 7:24 am

MDS1951 wrote:I held Pearson shares for quite a long time, and they did well while Dame Marje was in charge. They have not done so well since she retired from the company. In January 2019 the share price was at a reasonably decent level, so I took advantage of that to sell at £9.58 a share and escape with a reasonable profit. That looks like a good move with their main business under pressure now and the share price rather less at £5.89 than I sold them for; I sold them mainly because I had got fed up with the profit warnings.

Back in 2012 I bought shares in RELX at an average price of £5.49 so that it could double with Pearson in approximately the same line of business. Those have done very well, and I was lucky to buy them when I did.

MDS1951


A similar story to my own - except I didn't sell :lol: I also bought RELX when it was REL and it has done very well, but bought it in my wife's HYP. At least on a total family trading basis, it's not too bad overall 8-)

Arb.

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Re: Pearson January Trading Update

#278711

Postby Shelford » January 20th, 2020, 11:35 am

This is a shocking announcement, not least because of the departure of the CFO, so soon after the CEO. Lady Bracknell would have something to say about the carelessness of losing two exec directors in short succession.

I work in this industry/related sector. The decline of Pearson due to its strategy over past 10 years is an utterly dismal story and one for which Marjorie Scardino is largely responsible, with Fallon as her lieutenant. The business is still hugely reliant on the US textbook market - and this has been massively disrupted by Amazon/Follett with second hand book and rental sales eating into backlist revenues. And now their principal competitors are offering an all you can eat digital subscription model.

It's a genuine cluster****.

In short, it's not unlikely results will continue to get worse. I see little upside, given no one has yet come up with a digital learning materials model that work.

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Re: Pearson January Trading Update

#278715

Postby ReformedCharacter » January 20th, 2020, 11:43 am

As a LTBH type I'm generally loathe to sell a shareholding. I did sell Pearson about 3 years ago because I had little confidence in their education business, one of my better sell decisions I think.

RC

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Re: Pearson January Trading Update

#278800

Postby bluedonkey » January 20th, 2020, 5:51 pm

LTBH of Pearson here also. LTBH hasn't paid off. However for my portfolio as a whole, capital and income is at a high and on target to meet my personal goals. The lesson for me is building a portfolio and diversification. Not an earth-shattering comment I realise but sometimes individual share activity becomes noise rather than signal.

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Re: Pearson January Trading Update

#279086

Postby miner1000 » January 22nd, 2020, 6:54 am

I also still hold Pearson. Probably wont sell either as it is no longer a significant part of my HYP.

Fingers crossed for recovery although from what others say, that may not happen.

Fortunately, diversification works!

Miner


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