Digital Look dividend forecasts

[Davidsb]

I have noticed that, with one exception, this morning's DL dividend forecasts for all 46 of my HYP holdings are identical to those published on 1st May. The sole exception is BT.A, for which the forecast has rolled over from 2016-17 to 2017-18.

Logically, this means that either (1) none of the data collected by DL to calculate their dividend forecasts for these shares have changed, or (2) the underlying information has changed but DL just hasn't published the updated forecasts for two weeks, or (3) the forecasts have been rising and falling in the normal way but in an astonishing quirk of fate each of the 45 forecasts has returned to exactly where it was two weeks ago.....

Does anyone here know the actual reason for this?

TIA

Moderator Message:
moving from HYP Practical. Raptor.

[Grumpsimus]

I think Digital Look is getting slowly worse and worse. I think dividend forecasts were only updated once a week, now it appears to be even less frequently. I have also noticed that after a company announcement they seem very slow to update the dividends on the Company data page, it always used to be shortly after the announcement.

Does anyone else have problems logging on to Digital Look, it often takes me two or three goes before getting in. Navigation of the site can also be a problem, frequent "page moved" error messages.

Overall a very useful site that I have used for years, which appears to be going down the pan.

[Itsallaguess]

I have noticed that, with one exception, this morning's DL dividend forecasts for all 46 of my HYP holdings are identical to those published on 1st May. The sole exception is BT.A, for which the forecast has rolled over from 2016-17 to 2017-18.

Logically, this means that either (1) none of the data collected by DL to calculate their dividend forecasts for these shares have changed, or (2) the underlying information has changed but DL just hasn't published the updated forecasts for two weeks, or (3) the forecasts have been rising and falling in the normal way but in an astonishing quirk of fate each of the 45 forecasts has returned to exactly where it was two weeks ago.....

Does anyone here know the actual reason for this?

I'm not exactly clear on the specific data that you're looking at.

Could you please post a link to an example Digital Look page, and give an example of the fields you're concerned with?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[StepOne]

Yes, digitallook are always slow to update their forecast info. It's been know to take months. And often the calculated yields are different depending on whether you are looking at the individual company page, or an index listing like the following one for the FTSE100;

http://www.digitallook.com/index/FTSE_100/forecast

I use that page when I am updating the forecast yields on my HYP. Last time I did it was maybe a month ago, and most of the forecasts had changed from the previous time. However when I look at that page now the yields quoted are all identical to the yields on the copy I took last month. In fact all the data is identical, except the EPS growth percentages which have changed in about a third of companies. This is strange in itself as the forecast EPS figures have not changed. So, for example, last month Rio Tinto had a forecast EPS of 371.35p. This figure is unchanged today, but the EPS growth figure has dropped from 69.23% to 68.57%.

I still us Digitallook as an indicator as I'm not sure of a better source, but I don't rely on them being updated very often and I never use their 'calculated' figures - just the raw dividend and EPS forecasts.

StepOne

[Itsallaguess]

Yes, Digital Look are always slow to update their forecast info. It's been know to take months. And often the calculated yields are different depending on whether you are looking at the individual company page, or an index listing like the following one for the FTSE100;

http://www.digitallook.com/index/FTSE_100/forecast

I use that page when I am updating the forecast yields on my HYP. Last time I did it was maybe a month ago, and most of the forecasts had changed from the previous time. However when I look at that page now the yields quoted are all identical to the yields on the copy I took last month. In fact all the data is identical, except the EPS growth percentages which have changed in about a third of companies.

This is strange in itself as the forecast EPS figures have not changed. So, for example, last month Rio Tinto had a forecast EPS of 371.35p. This figure is unchanged today, but the EPS growth figure has dropped from 69.23% to 68.57%.

I still us Digitallook as an indicator as I'm not sure of a better source, but I don't rely on them being updated very often and I never use their 'calculated' figures - just the raw dividend and EPS forecasts.

StepOne

That was the page I was worried the OP was using, which we know has given these sorts of issues in the past, but I wanted to be certain before I jumped in.

For the HYPTUSS utility, we scrape the individual Forecast Yield figures from the specific company pages (here for BT - http://tinyurl.com/pyejxgr), and these pages seem to get updated more regularly than the FTSE100 list above.

I wouldn't recommend anyone use the FTSE100 URL above for this specific reason; it's proved to be problematic in the past regarding updating the data, and you seem to have noticed the same thing currently that happened last time we discussed it.

That said, as with all free data-sources, we've also seen issues with the individual DL pages, especially where dividend cuts have been announced and those new figures have sometimes been slow to filter through to free sources such as these. We get what we pay for I suppose.. :O)

I'm still happy to use the DL Forecast Yield data from the main company pages, but would always recommend making sure to subscribe to the free company-specific RNS emails sent from somewhere like Investegate (http://www.investegate.co.uk/Alertregistration.aspx), or make sure to keep up to speed with bulletin boards like these, where such cuts are likely to be announced.

The main lesson to take from this would be to never rely on a single unsolicited data-source. Always ensure you check any reliant information back to the company announcements themselves before committing capital into equities, and be wary of any and all compiled data.

It will be interesting to hear if the main FTSE 100 Digital Look page is the one bothering the OP...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[JMN2]

I've stopped using forecasts, instead I keep a record of actual announced/paid dividends for each stock and update the spreadsheet as divis are announced or paid, or when I update the divi payments for the next month. For instance, I just updated VOD dividend this morning. All this is showing 4.7% for the portfolio where as digital look is showing 4.93%.

[Itsallaguess]

I've stopped using forecasts, instead I keep a record of actual announced/paid dividends for each stock and update the spreadsheet as divis are announced or paid, or when I update the divi payments for the next month.

For instance, I just updated VOD dividend this morning. All this is showing 4.7% for the portfolio where as digital look is showing 4.93%.

I think the slight difference there will be down to the Digital Look forecasts looking out for a full twin-set of results, whereas you've only taken the latest announcement into account.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but just that it's likely to explain the discrepancy. Your method also sounds like a lot of manual work, which we've always tried to keep away from if the automatic data can be seen to be good enough.

I'll maintain that at a HYP portfolio level, the Digital Look Forecast Yields can be a useful guide to the level of income to be expected from a HYP portfolio one year out, but I do understand why people might see individual discrepancies sometimes, and start doubting their usefulness.

All I can say to that is that generally, the little discrepancies even each other out, and a good forecast can still be achieved at a portfolio level.

I'd still never use the FTSE 100 page forecasts that was linked to earlier, however, as that's proved to be problematic too many times in the past.

The individual DL share-pages are much better generally, and that's where we get our data from.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Davidsb]

That was the page I was worried the OP was using, which we know has given these sorts of issues in the past, but I wanted to be certain before I jumped in.

For the HYPTUSS utility, we scrape the individual Forecast Yield figures from the specific company pages (here for BT - http://tinyurl.com/pyejxgr), and these pages seem to get updated more regularly than the FTSE100 list above.

Hi itsallaguess -

I always use the individual company-specific pages, as in your link above.

Another week has passed since my post, and once again the only forecasts to change are those where the company has published its Prelims - for this week, its Investec (INVP), National Grid (NG.) and SSE (SSE). All other forecasts relating to my HYP's shares are repeats of last week's numbers.

After DL did this before (I pointed out the problem on MF) I changed to using Morningstar for my forecast information.

Incidentally, I originally posted on the 'HYP - Practical' board because I (and, I believe, a number of other contributors) use forecast dividends as a major filter for selecting new purchases and top-ups for their portfolios - apologies if I offended against the posting guidelines.

Incidentally, does The Lemon Fool notify posters when posts are moved or deleted? I don't recall receiving a notification.....

Thanks.

[Itsallaguess]

Another week has passed since my post, and once again the only forecasts to change are those where the company has published its Prelims - for this week, its Investec (INVP), National Grid (NG.) and SSE (SSE). All other forecasts relating to my HYP's shares are repeats of last week's numbers.

After DL did this before (I pointed out the problem on MF) I changed to using Morningstar for my forecast information.

I'm really not sure what we should expect regarding the updating of Forecast Dividend information at a company-level, so to see three companies updated on the Digital Look pages and others still using legacy figures doesn't really ring any alarm bells for me to be honest, especially when the ones you've seen having updated data have changed following recent official news from the companies involved.

In fact the situation you've described seems perfectly reasonable to me, and so long as we're seeing some data being updated then I'd personally be happy with that. Can you describe the situation you'd be happy to see, given that you don't seem too happy with the situation you're seeing?

Incidentally, I originally posted on the 'HYP - Practical' board because I (and, I believe, a number of other contributors) use forecast dividends as a major filter for selecting new purchases and top-ups for their portfolios - apologies if I offended against the posting guidelines.

Incidentally, does The Lemon Fool notify posters when posts are moved or deleted? I don't recall receiving a notification.....

I'm only assuming things here, but I think the moderator may have decided that your thread was primarily related to the too-lset data, rather than the use of that data, so maybe preferred not to clutter the main HYP Practical Board with those types of discussions, but in the absence of any further information then we'll have to assume something like that's happened here.

I fully agree that issues surrounding the HYPTUSS utility should be kept largely away from the HYP Practical Board where possible, although I would like to think that small-scale discussions are allowed that won't generate too much noise, with efforts from everyone to them move to a more suitable board if the noise levels get too high.

With regards to your second question, I know there's been many threads moved in the past, and like this one they are often marked with a comment by the mod carrying out the move as to just what's happened. Often there's extra information based on the specific decision and why it was taken, so I think efforts are being made in that area where time allows.

Regarding the deletion of posts, the process isn't as slick as the old TMF process, where an automatic email was sent out to the poster telling them of the post-deletion, and often why it was deemed necessary to do so. The TLF process isn't that good, and a manual PM would need to be generated on top of the post-deletion process, and I'm not sure if this always occurs.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Davidsb]

Hi itsallaguess -

In fact the situation you've described seems perfectly reasonable to me, and so long as we're seeing some data being updated then I'd personally be happy with that. Can you describe the situation you'd be happy to see, given that you don't seem too happy with the situation you're seeing?

As mentioned, I now use Morningstar's forecasts on a day-to-day basis - and if I look at last week's scrape of the data I find that, compared to the week before, three forecasts have changed significantly (INVP, NG and SSE, who all released prelims as mentioned previously), six forecasts have reduced slightly, four forecasts have increased slightly, and thirty-three have not changed. This is the sort of pattern I would expect, as brokers react to companies issuing press and RNS releases, hosting analyst days, publicising contract wins, and so on - this pattern is broadly repeated over the past month or so, and I have no reason to suspect that previous weeks show anything different.

For none of my holdings' forecasts to change over a three week period is unheard of since I started using Morningstar in mid-December 2015 - and as I recall, the change to Morningstar was prompted by DL not updating their forecasts in exactly the same way as we see at present.

[Itsallaguess]

For none of my holdings' forecasts to change over a three week period is unheard of since I started using Morningstar in mid-December 2015 - and as I recall, the change to Morningstar was prompted by DL not updating their forecasts in exactly the same way as we see at present.

Without an in-depth study, we're not going to know what's going on, but I agree that it looks like Morningstar updates the data more often. I'd be interested to know how long it takes for the Digital Look data to 'catch up' if it does, but I think seeing DL being slow on the data-updates is nothing new.

Personally I'm not so concerned with the speed of the updates. So long as the data is being updated then I'm happy to continue using it from Digital Look. For some years now I've tracked future expected-dividends from the data and then compared with the deliverable income, and it's been consistently close enough at a HYP portfolio level for it to be useful to me, and until that changes then I've no real need for any extra level of update-frequency. I only run the checks a couple of times a year, whereas it sounds like you've got a much better handle on more granular company forecasts.

As you say, Digital Look has had minor issues in the past with this sort of free data, but I think they usually get it sorted out to a level that's still useful.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Raptor]

Incidentally, does The Lemon Fool notify posters when posts are moved or deleted? I don't recall receiving a notification.....

Thanks.

Hi, depends on the type and content of the post. Also depends on the moderator. I always add a mod box, so if you look at the first post you will see mod box with "moving from HYP Practical". I usually send a PM on a delete, but it does depend on what I am deleting as on other boards I moderate, I warn once or twice and then just delete.

I was thinking of changing my style by adding a post and then a mod box, which should at least notify the OP that something has been added, but did not want to up my personal post count unless I offer something to the "topic".

Strangely about the topic, I just checked my forecasts on HYPTUSS and they all seem to correct, but to be honest when I top-up I tend to go and look at either the company investor page or yahoo (only as I have a portfolio with all my shares and IT's on it).

Raptor.

[StepOne]

Are forecasts still available on MorningStar? I thought they had removed them, and I had a look just now but can't see them on the site - unless they are only available to Premium users?

Thanks,
StepOne

[kempiejon]

Are forecasts still available on MorningStar? I thought they had removed them, and I had a look just now but can't see them on the site - unless they are only available to Premium users?

StepOne,
I think I get the detail of a premium member with my AJ Bell account but even when not logged in I can use their research. I'm not sure exactly how to navigate from the Morningstar pages or even directly from AJ Bel but I do I have this link for TATE, https://www.youinvest.co.uk/market-research/LSE:tate which gets me the data. Obviously one can change the tickers at the end of the link for the shares you need and scroll down below financials for broker forecasts.

edited - a couple of minutes with morningstar and I found TATE dividend forecasts on this page http://tools.morningstar.co.uk/uk/stock ... encyId=BAS

[kiloran]

Are forecasts still available on MorningStar? I thought they had removed them, and I had a look just now but can't see them on the site - unless they are only available to Premium users?

StepOne,
I think I get the detail of a premium member with my AJ Bell account but even when not logged in I can use their research. I'm not sure exactly how to navigate from the Morningstar pages or even directly from AJ Bel but I do I have this link for TATE, https://www.youinvest.co.uk/market-research/LSE:tate which gets me the data. Obviously one can change the tickers at the end of the link for the shares you need and scroll down below financials for broker forecasts.

edited - a couple of minutes with morningstar and I found TATE dividend forecasts on this page http://tools.morningstar.co.uk/uk/stock ... encyId=BAS

That's interesting.
Last year, Morningstar removed the forecasts because the regulator said they conflicted with the Market Abuse Regulations. And yet they are feeding the data to AJ Bell who then publish it.
It also looks like data is easier to access from AJ Bell than directly from Morningstar.

Very strange

--kiloran

[Davidsb]

Hi StepOne -

Are forecasts still available on MorningStar? I thought they had removed them, and I had a look just now but can't see them on the site - unless they are only available to Premium users?

Access to the forecasts does not require a Premium subscription.

Morningstar did re-vamp their page layouts a little while ago, but forecast dividends (and other data) are still available. Select the company in which you are interested - say for example Aviva. Selecting 'Financials and Ratios' takes you here:-

http://tools.morningstar.co.uk/uk/stock ... encyId=BAS

Then select 'Dividends' to get to this page:-

http://tools.morningstar.co.uk/uk/stock ... encyId=BAS

You will see assorted dividend data for three years history, current year estimate and next year forecast.

HTH.

[DiamondEcho]

I've stopped using forecasts, instead I keep a record of actual announced/paid dividends for each stock and update the spreadsheet as divis are announced or paid, or when I update the divi payments for the next month. For instance, I just updated VOD dividend this morning. All this is showing 4.7% for the portfolio where as digital look is showing 4.93%.

I don't trust DL even for 'actual' data, so their estimates are effectively worthless for me. Their forecast divs are perhaps consensus broker estimates but broker-views are little more than rolling best guesses together with an element of vested interests.

So I do something similar to JMN. I base the HYPTUSS 'Forecast Yield' column on data in a separate spread-sheet page. Essentially this uses the actual dividends paid over the prior year divided by what is in the 'Current price' cell. Note further that DL appear to have no capacity for incorporating any non-standard dividends, so they exclude Specials and '''guaranteed''' future dividend plans. Here are two examples from last night's close:

Berkeley Group Holdings/BKG. Currently has such a 'guaranteed' div plan of paying 200p/pa through to Sep-2021. Close px last night = 3364p
200/3364 = 5.95%
DLs FTSE-250 constituent listing shows the 'Div Yield' figure as 5.65%. No idea why http://www.digitallook.com/index/FTSE_250
Interestingly when I go to the BKG page the 'Forecast Yield' shows at 5.9% http://www.digitallook.com/equity/Berke ... ldings_The
But IME that's more coincidence than due to reliability.

Lancashire Holdings/LRE. Infra-structure insurance; airports, oil-rigs etc. Due to the nature of the risks, it pays out divs as a very low basic div, plus a highly variable Special in addition.
This is a tricky one, as might be other insurers with variable specials. If you base your FY% calculation solely on the current US$0.15 basic div then you'd have no reason to buy them. On the other hand basing it on prior pay-outs would not be conservative - hmmm. I tend to pencil in the prior-year pay-out [rolling data on back-ground sheet] over the 'Current Price' cell. Note though: In no way do I mentally bank the higher figure nor expect to receive it until the day the results are announced.
For last night, the PY pay-out was 72.2p. Closing price was 677.5p = 10.66%
DL shows the Yield on the above FTSE-250 index page as 1.7%, perhaps derived off the US$0.15 basic div (but it's DL so who knows, is my cynical view)
Drill down into the stock and the 'Forecast Div%' is 7.6% http://www.digitallook.com/equity/Lanca ... gs_Limited - and again, who knows where that figure comes from.
I watch corporate guidance on expected earnings/results; I ignore broker forecasts. Close to results if LRE start guiding expectations then I too will start guiding the PY actual div figures to come closer to what is currently expected.

So for me doing this recalculation is worth the small amount of work as the DL div data - esp. on stocks like these - is more than useless to me.

[DiamondEcho]

Re: Morningstar for the two above-mentioned non-standard div payers.
They have the 200p/pa capital return programme for BKG correctly incorporated into their figures.

But for Lancashire PLC they appear to be ignoring the special-divs, even amongst prior year actuals. And it appears to be even wronger [ ] than that.Their actuals are the US$0.15 baseline div [ex Specials]. But they haven't locked in the US$/£ conversion rate that was applied on the dividends; their converted figures are derived from incorrect FX rates, maybe current spot rates, IDK.

[Davidsb]

Hi DiamondEcho -

Berkeley Group Holdings/BKG. Currently has such a 'guaranteed' div plan of paying 200p/pa through to Sep-2021. Close px last night = 3364p
200/3364 = 5.95%

You may possibly have seen that BKG does not in fact have a plan (guaranteed or otherwise) to pay 200p/pa in dividends through to Sep-2021.

The company's stated intention is to return 200p per share per annum to shareholders through a combination of dividends and share buybacks.

BGK has spent nearly £44.4m so far this year on buying back over 1.5m shares, which (if no further purchases are made) will result in a full year dividend payment of just under 170p per share (85.24p interim plus 84.17p final).

DL is showing a 2017 forecast dividend of 189.41p - I have no idea where this figure has come from.

HTH

[DiamondEcho]

Hi David, hands up you're right! But in mitigation I'd say that at that point [of the layered on buy-backs, on top of the published plan to 2021] that by definition it is impossible to model. That is because the recent buy-back plan is in essence a bloody great stick with which to beat the shorts, especially Crispin Odey, into submission. And the power of wielding that stick is do do it via the anonymity of buying in the market. You only know when an RNS comes out 2-3 days later, and their buy-back range is dynamic. If you look at Shorttracker you might conclude that plan has paid dividends, as such! http://shorttracker.co.uk/company/GB00B02L3W35/all
I mentally discount it's impact on the net div paid because:
- it's impossible to model
- buy-backs assist the share px [div reduction, probably vs capital gain, possibly?]
- they reduce the shares in circulation upon which the future div pots are paid.
- the buy-backs have tended to be quite small and occasional, but appear to have a magnified effect. [The last one was +39,458 shares worth £1.2million on 6th April http://www.investegate.co.uk/berkeley-g ... 00078568B/ ]

When they started the buy-backs they were going in all guns blazing, but from what I can see such activity has really tapered off over the last 2+ months. So if you are looking at the div income alone it has been temporarily reduced, but IMO you get most/all/all+ back considering div+capital.