Astra staring me out

[Gengulphus]

(*) Please note that, for the years before 2012, I have calculated the GBP amounts using the Exchange Rate prevalent at the time the dividend was declared. For 2012 until today, I have had a holding and therefore have the exact details within my records.

If you or anyone else would like the exact GBP amounts going back rather further, here they are:

2004: 50.3p
2005: 73.7p
2006: 89.6p
2007: 93.0p
2008: 132.6p
2009: 141.4p
2010: 161.6p
2011: 175.5p (confirmed against your figure, as a 'sanity check' that we're talking about the same thing)

The source is my own archived set of annual reports - if I hadn't already had them, it would have taken a lot longer to get the figures than just loading each report, searching for "dividend" in each of them and finding that they had a habit of including a dividend summary table early on, giving USD, GBP and SEK amounts.

I'm not expecting an updated table, by the way, as the differences from your figures are clearly pretty small - the biggest is just over 1% for 2007. (Part of the point of gathering the figures was simply to satisfy my curiosity about just how big such differences are!)

Gengulphus

[Charlottesquare]

Not particular to Astra but when I am having a moment of doubt re a possible partial share sale I tend, if I cannot resolve my doubts, to sell half of what I might have sold. I appreciate it may increase my frictional costs , it is really a financial seat on the fence.

Same with purchases, if I fancy something but have reservations a half or quarter size purchase is often my way of overcoming my niggles.

[xbigman]

Looking at what I wrote yesterday I think my views were coloured by my own investing style of investing for 'yield with a value factor' and a more concentrated portfolio. Which of course is a discussion for another board.

I can see the attraction of AZN for those looking for yield as the primary factor AND decent diversification. As long as a decent yield is there you can hold forever. I do think that for those who regularly tinker with their portfolio having a revue of what AZN is giving you compared to other similar yielders is a good idea. Each to their own.

Good discussion.




Darren

[kempiejon]

AZN at present has been bouncing around just under 2x my median weight, but now is persistently just above it. It's at the level where playing by my rules, I should trim, but at the moment that hardly seems a wise thing to do. Of course, their vaccine attempts might fail, and this could be the peak...

Should I just go to sleep on it, and let nature take its course - ride the wave, so to speak? That's my feeling, but I wonder what others are doing in the same position. Strict mechanics, or bring in some touchy feely?

Arb.

That's a bit better then, it's fallen back a few percent, perhaps this trend will continue and it'll be a high yielder by Christmas. I don't believe any of the vaccine hype it's all a long way away. You might have called the peak, shame not to have acted on it. Next week the sp could be anywhere.

[Arborbridge]

AZN at present has been bouncing around just under 2x my median weight, but now is persistently just above it. It's at the level where playing by my rules, I should trim, but at the moment that hardly seems a wise thing to do. Of course, their vaccine attempts might fail, and this could be the peak...

Should I just go to sleep on it, and let nature take its course - ride the wave, so to speak? That's my feeling, but I wonder what others are doing in the same position. Strict mechanics, or bring in some touchy feely?

Arb.

That's a bit better then, it's fallen back a few percent, perhaps this trend will continue and it'll be a high yielder by Christmas. I don't believe any of the vaccine hype it's all a long way away. You might have called the peak, shame not to have acted on it. Next week the sp could be anywhere.

You might have called the peak, shame not to have acted on it.

Quite possibly! I went on a walk to finish the South Downs Way, having now walked all the way from Eastbourne to Winchester - ending there yesterday for lunch in a pub. Consequently, all other thoughts were put on the back burner.
This morning, I notice AZN has dipped below x2 median (x1.93) so whether it was "persistently" above x2 is isn't now - though the thought still remains about whether I should act or not.

Almost the same thing happened with Pearson (though this was not a share which had behaved well unlike AZN) in that I called the peak at around 1000p - now roughly halved - and should perhaps have sold then.

Fortunes of war and all that... still these thoughts have promoted some worthwhile airing of views, I believe: the sort of helpful activity the core HYPP community is very good at. Thanks.

Arb.

[Gengulphus]

That's a bit better then, it's fallen back a few percent, perhaps this trend will continue and it'll be a high yielder by Christmas. I don't believe any of the vaccine hype it's all a long way away. You might have called the peak, shame not to have acted on it. Next week the sp could be anywhere.

You might have called the peak, shame not to have acted on it.

Quite possibly! I went on a walk to finish the South Downs Way, having now walked all the way from Eastbourne to Winchester - ending there yesterday for lunch in a pub. Consequently, all other thoughts were put on the back burner.
This morning, I notice AZN has dipped below x2 median (x1.93) so whether it was "persistently" above x2 is isn't now - though the thought still remains about whether I should act or not.

The most important word in "You might have called the peak" is "might" - whenever you see that word, consider the alternative "might not" as well!

Looking at a share price chart such as https://www.investegate.co.uk/CompData.aspx?AZN and setting the period to 3 years to get a bigger sample, I reckon I can count at least 5 and probably 7 similar 'peaks' in those 3 years, in the sense that they were new all-time-high (*) share prices followed by a similar-sized percentage drop to the one that has happened here. So any sort of attempt to spot such 'peaks' and sell on them is liable to be selling every 6 months or less on average - not at all consistent with an LTB&H strategy!

I'm not accusing anyone here of not running a HYP strategy - just pointing out that regretting such 'missed opportunities' is a step on the broad path that leads one away from running a HYP. Only a step and it will take quite a few more to get away from running a HYP - but why take that step? Save yourself a lot of agonising by having a tinkering policy and sticking to it. If your tinkering policy says to sell a proportion of your holding if and when a share goes over twice median weight in your HYP, do such a sale when it goes over twice median weight; if it doesn't say that, don't. Either way, don't waste your time on useless regrets afterwards - any tinkering policy (including the policy of not tinkering at all) will have occasions when it fails, either by telling you to sell all or part of a holding that then continues to rise, or by telling you not to do so for a holding that then collapses.

By the way, I'm not arguing against reviewing one's tinkering policy. The difference is that a tinkering policy review looks at many cases where one tinkered or would have tinkered under an alternative policy being considered, and is preferably done when one doesn't have any recent case of tinkering / not tinkering that could dominate one's thinking, whereas regretting a decision to tinker or not to tinker considers one (typically recent) case that is dominating one's thinking.

(*) All-time-highness checked against a much longer-period chart.

Gengulphus