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Re: Astrazeneca full year results.

Posted: February 14th, 2020, 9:00 am
by Dod101
This is supposed to be a commercially operating company but it is behaving like a fairly efficient not for profit pharma researcher. Note that we need to search quite diligently for the word profit or even EPS in its results announcement. The whole emphasis is on the revenue growth. And to call such a dividend policy 'progressive' is ridiculous, bordering on the mendacious. I might even write to the Chairman on that one. I am unlikely to get to the AGM.

Astra now needs to be looked at very carefully in my book and I will be taking capital profits as and when they arise. The HYP concept is now thoroughly shown to be flawed. Just look at the number of big dividend producers where the dividend is static. We will get another year of that also with HSBC next week I expect.

Dod

Re: Astrazeneca full year results.

Posted: February 14th, 2020, 9:09 am
by dspp
Dod101 wrote:This is supposed to be a commercially operating company but it is behaving like a fairly efficient not for profit pharma researcher. Note that we need to search quite diligently for the word profit or even EPS in its results announcement. The whole emphasis is on the revenue growth. And to call such a dividend policy 'progressive' is ridiculous, bordering on the mendacious. I might even write to the Chairman on that one. I am unlikely to get to the AGM.

Astra now needs to be looked at very carefully in my book and I will be taking capital profits as and when they arise. The HYP concept is now thoroughly shown to be flawed. Just look at the number of big dividend producers where the dividend is static. We will get another year of that also with HSBC next week I expect.

Dod


Moderator Message:
Relocated as not being within HYP-P guidelines. regards, dspp

Re: Astrazeneca full year results.

Posted: February 14th, 2020, 9:19 am
by dspp
Moderator Message:
Everyone,

1. The board guidelines for HYP-P do not support meta-level criticism of the methodology. Therefore any HYP-P meta-level criticism must be elsewhere, and ideally here if you want the HYP-ish community to maybe perhaps one day read them. I would be very grateful if you could all work with rather than against those guidelines. If you do not then it takes Mods likes me a lot of effort to carefully relocate your posts to a more suitable place for general discussion. Or we can quickly hit delete.

2. Similarly the HYP-P guidelines do not support plain bickering. Actually nowhere on TLF does allow that, but for some reason HYP-P is worse. In that case the solution is easier and the delete button is a very swift tool for Mod intervention. However even then it takes time to respond to the (many) alerts and sift through a thread to (ideally) find out who cast the original stone, and to work forwards from there. In that vein I have deleted about a dozen posts following alerts. (add: and I can see other Mods have been doing just as much !)

thank you, dspp

Re: AstraZeneca thoughts

Posted: February 14th, 2020, 9:35 am
by Dod101
I am criticising the Company not the HYP methodology and find it strange that that sort of comment is not allowed on the HYP Practical Board., Discussing the pros and cons of a share being (or not) suitable as a HYP share is surely part of the HYP process.

Dod

Re: AstraZeneca thoughts

Posted: February 14th, 2020, 9:36 am
by tjh290633
At its current price the yield on AZN is 2.8%, the dividend is static. The price has risen slightly, but not enough to classify as growth. I took some profits in November 2018 at 6,252p, when it had gone overweight. Currently about 25% above my median weight, so some way to go before it might be trimmed again.

I rate it as a hold.

TJH

Re: AstraZeneca thoughts

Posted: February 14th, 2020, 9:40 am
by monabri
What the deuce does " meta-level " criticism mean? Sounds like a snippet taken from a party political manifesto and makes as much sense to the common man as a progressive dividend policy which is ...static.

Dod's criticism of HYP relates to the many static dividends....a fair enough assessment for anyone who has to pay a non static gas or electricity bill ( or council tax!).

Re: AstraZeneca thoughts

Posted: February 14th, 2020, 9:48 am
by Arborbridge
Dod101 wrote:I am criticising the Company not the HYP methodology and find it strange that that sort of comment is not allowed on the HYP Practical Board., Discussing the pros and cons of a share being (or not) suitable as a HYP share is surely part of the HYP process.

Dod


Correction Dod, or perhaps you overlooked what you wrote in the following:-
"The HYP concept is now thoroughly shown to be flawed. Just look at the number of big dividend producers where the dividend is static."

That's the comment wot did for you: you were clearly discussing HYP itself, not the share.

In my view you are wrong - it's far too early to draw that conclusion: a falling income year or a static year is to be expected once in a while in normal times - and these aren't normal times. The government made certain decisions which have called into doubt the future prosperity of UK companies, so some interruption is bound to be noticed, and this does not necessarily call into question the HYP concept itself.

We will have to be patient and see what emerges in the next five years.

Arb.

Re: AstraZeneca thoughts

Posted: February 14th, 2020, 9:51 am
by Dod101
OK Thanks Arb. Forgot that comment. Anyway, I stand by my comments re AstraZeneca.

Dod

Re: AstraZeneca thoughts

Posted: February 14th, 2020, 9:54 am
by Arborbridge
monabri wrote:What the deuce does " meta-level " criticism mean? Sounds like a snippet taken from a party political manifesto and makes as much sense to the common man as a progressive dividend policy which is ...static.

Dod's criticism of HYP relates to the many static dividends....a fair enough assessment for anyone who has to pay a non static gas or electricity bill ( or council tax!).


Meta-discussions were never allowed at all on TMF - whether this counted as one can be debated, but that might of itself be a meta-level discussion :lol:

It means, in effect getting into a discussion about the discussion - or in this case a discussion about the subject and purpose of the board (that being, in this general context "the discussion". i.e. one is not allowed on HYP-P to discuss whether HYP is a good idea or not, and discussing that becomes a meta-discussion .

I hope that's clear :?

Re: AstraZeneca thoughts

Posted: February 14th, 2020, 9:55 am
by Arborbridge
Dod101 wrote:OK Thanks Arb. Forgot that comment. Anyway, I stand by my comments re AstraZeneca.

Dod


Yes, the AZNcomment was pretty much on target. I may well trim as I have a big holding. My "psycho" problem with that is that I quite like seeing my holdings grow after years of patience and hate reducing them!
A bit silly, but understandable.

Re: AstraZeneca thoughts

Posted: February 14th, 2020, 9:58 am
by 88V8
Sold AZN a long time ago, because... errm, well, anyway.
Also hold GSK although less than of yore. Static divi, and likely to remain so.

There was an HYP golden age. When one is living in a golden age, one does not necessarily know it. Hot hatches before speed cameras, and more pertinently, a plethora of HYP candidates with juicy and dependable payouts which, on the whole, increased at a fair lick.

Untaxed dividends
Pretty soon, divis will be taxed at income rates.
Or if Labour get in, even more. Remember 'Unearned income'? and a marginal tax rate of 105% (one O five) ??

And somehow, divis are beginning to be labelled in some people's minds as a Bad Thing. People are coming into gubmt who seem to hold that belief. After all, today's crackpot university students are tomorrows gubmt, and so the unthinkable happens. Example; [*** edited, matters of sexual orientation are not relevant here **** (dspp)]
Even more unlikely in this capitalist country, the Conservative gubmt interferes with the profitability of utes, the implication being that they are paying too much divi,
This does not bode well.

I shall cling to my HYP, perch on the shrinking raft, buoyed by outriggers of Fixed Interest and a few ITs. I believe HYP remains viable as a component of a mixed investment buoyancy bag.
But realistically, the HYP golden age, when AZN was a regular Luni pick, is gone. At least for the time being.

V8

Re: AstraZeneca thoughts

Posted: February 14th, 2020, 10:00 am
by Arborbridge
Arborbridge wrote:
Dod101 wrote:OK Thanks Arb. Forgot that comment. Anyway, I stand by my comments re AstraZeneca.

Dod


Yes, the AZNcomment was pretty much on target. I may well trim as I have a big holding. My "psycho" problem with that is that I quite like seeing my holdings grow after years of patience and hate reducing them!
A bit silly, but understandable.


Addendum to my thought above: If I trim too much with a low yielder, the booked dividends begin to look a bit pathetic compared with other big beasts! e.g. this happens with Reckitt or DGE. One begins to wonder whether it's worth booking the dividend in my spreadsheet compared with those others.

Re: AstraZeneca thoughts

Posted: February 14th, 2020, 10:02 am
by dspp
Dod101 wrote:I am criticising the Company not the HYP methodology and find it strange that that sort of comment is not allowed on the HYP Practical Board., Discussing the pros and cons of a share being (or not) suitable as a HYP share is surely part of the HYP process.

Dod


Dod,

I appreciate that we should not debate Mod actions here, but let me transgress myself long enough to try to assist. What you actually wrote is "The HYP concept is now thoroughly shown to be flawed". Those are your exact words. If that is not criticism of the HYP concept then I do not know what is.

Discussions of HYP-P shares, within HYP-P guidelines, on the HYP-P board are permitted. But the Moderators are here to stop such discussions descending into bickering, or (in the particular case of HYP-P) deviating outside the HYP-P guidelines. That first bit is a common feature of the whole of TLF. That second bit is a particular feature of HYP-P where the practitioners wish for some sort of safe space in which to go about their discussions of their business, free of criticism as to whether the business itself is of merit.

For the avoidance of doubt, my personal opinion is that HYP-P is fundamentally flawed as a concept, and in any case remarkably poorly adhered to in practice, even by those claiming to be its adherents. But that is my personal opinion, and is irrelevant when I stick my Mod hat on in response to alerts. At such times I simply boot off the offending posts, either easily into the bin of deletion, or (with quite a bit of effort) by relocating them somewhere suitable.

Fundamentally you are free to discuss your assertion that "The HYP concept is now thoroughly shown to be flawed" here, but not on the HYP-P board. Or you may wish to retract it. Or whatever.

It may well be that another Mod will come along and relocate this thread or delete specific posts as being discussion of Mod actions, but in the meantime I hope this helps. Sometimes I do think that I should only ever use the delete button .... it is so much less effort.

regards, dspp

Re: AstraZeneca thoughts

Posted: February 14th, 2020, 10:02 am
by 88V8
Arborbridge wrote:One begins to wonder whether it's worth booking the dividend in my spreadsheet compared with those others.


I believe I have previously voiced the suspicion that your HYP is largely a rationale for running a spreadsheet :)

V8

Re: AstraZeneca thoughts

Posted: February 14th, 2020, 10:04 am
by Arborbridge
88V8 wrote:
I shall cling to my HYP, perch on the shrinking raft, buoyed by outriggers of Fixed Interest and a few ITs. I believe HYP remains viable as a component of a mixed investment buoyancy bag.
But realistically, the HYP golden age, when AZN was a regular Luni pick, is gone. At least for the time being.

V8



But ITs - at least income ones - face the same problem as HYP, so there's no respite there, unless the are just better at it than we are. And going global isn't much help, because yields are generally worse abroad and the anti-dividend thrust is likely to be global anyway since the inter-generational feud is the same.


Arb.

Re: AstraZeneca thoughts

Posted: February 14th, 2020, 10:06 am
by Arborbridge
88V8 wrote:
Arborbridge wrote:One begins to wonder whether it's worth booking the dividend in my spreadsheet compared with those others.


I believe I have previously voiced the suspicion that your HYP is largely a rationale for running a spreadsheet :)

V8


8-) but it's really about the pretty charts :lol:

Re: AstraZeneca thoughts

Posted: February 14th, 2020, 12:44 pm
by Dod101
Thanks for your comments dspp. Much appreciated. The reason I think that HYP has had it is illustrated by the substantial number of companies where the dividend is frozen and/or where the dividend is in my opinion, less than secure.

I think that we are much better off, certainly I am, by holding shares like SEGRO, which have a modest yield but that are growing their business and so the dividends in due course.

The problem is that for the dividend seeker especially in the early days, he/she usually is looking for a well above market yield. The HYP concept thus steers one towards the slower growing companies otherwise of course they would be using their strong cash flows in growing their business rather than in paying big dividends, which is what the likes of SEGRO is doing. And if they overdo the dividend payments, we have the static dividends and this is seen in HSBC, Shell, Glaxo, AstraZeneca and others, all of which are or have been classic HYP shares.

Dod

Re: AstraZeneca thoughts

Posted: February 14th, 2020, 1:05 pm
by fca2019
Funny thread!! Re comment AZ downplaying profits in their report, they are under political pressure with the US election and what worries them is for political gain in the US they the politicians will promise to lower drug prices. So it doesn't surprise me they downplay talk of profits, this time round.

Re: AstraZeneca thoughts

Posted: February 14th, 2020, 2:08 pm
by Dod101
fca2019 wrote:Funny thread!! Re comment AZ downplaying profits in their report, they are under political pressure with the US election and what worries them is for political gain in the US they the politicians will promise to lower drug prices. So it doesn't surprise me they downplay talk of profits, this time round.


Frankly I think those comments are off beam. Whoever heard of a company downplaying their profits for political reasons? They are down playing them because they have not got enough to talk about.

I am seriously thinking of selling my remaining holding which has, even with today's fall, done very well for me.

Dod

Re: AstraZeneca thoughts

Posted: February 14th, 2020, 5:39 pm
by bluedonkey
The non-adjusted eps for AZN have been less than the dividend for the last 5 years. AZN have a track record of making the adjusted eps consistently flattering. On that basis I sold a year ago. I posted on this at the time. I admit that capital wise that was a mistake, the price rose significantly after I sold! However, eventually the uncovered dividend will not withstand the pressure.