Aj Bell Share Discussion Threads

[saltaire111] 24/12/2020 13:11

Nice to see AJB close the year above £4.50.

Let’s hope it’s the start of a trend!

Merry Christmas fellow ADVFN addicts.

Salty

[eaaxs06] 23/12/2020 10:50

Well, if I was a trader, I know what I should be doing. But I won't.

Good luck everybody, and have a great Xmas, Sid.

[saltaire111] 17/12/2020 22:15

If I were a trader, rather than an investor, there are two shares that could trade beautifully. One is AJB. Buy at just over four quid, and sell at four pounds fifty! And repeat.

The other share is Direct Line. Buy DL two weeks after the share goes ex-d and then sell just before the share goes ex-d again.

Salty.

[eaaxs06] 17/12/2020 15:27

I'm not sure what happened, but lovely, steady price rise from 11 O'clock today.

I just hope we don't see too much of a sell off now we've hit 450p, as has happened several times in the recent past.

Good luck everybody, Sid.

[oilplays] 07/12/2020 09:39

Tend to agree. Their site doesn't recognise new float today HEIQ so unable to trade.

[melody9999] 05/12/2020 09:42

Rise in fees, platform flaky, boss saying don't expect to be able to trade all the time when the market is volatile (ie our system can't handle and we are not prepared to invest to change that) ....as a director I think I would be selling now too.

Its time AJBell invested in its customers, not charge them more for providing a mediocre service. These guys need a reality check.

[orchid5] 04/12/2020 17:37

Plenty of fund managers wanting AJB shares.

[saltaire111] 04/12/2020 16:45

I don’t blame them for cashing in. They’ve done a great job and delivered excellent results.

Salty.

[ochs] 04/12/2020 14:46

End of tax year is 5th April, so still 4 months away!

[steve73] 04/12/2020 10:02

IIRC, that was the end of the lock-in periods for the early investors... so there shouldn't be any incentive to offload in big chunks... but of course they can sell out steadily now if they chose.

[saltaire111] 04/12/2020 09:51

This is rapidly ruining my day...

[eaaxs06] 04/12/2020 09:48

Anyone cute enough to follow the directors and sell everytime it goes near 450p, then buy when it drops 10% or so could have made good money here for the past 6 months.

Good luck everybody. Sid.

[saltaire111] 04/12/2020 09:32

Just seen the RNS. Directors sold a shed-load yesterday.

[saltaire111] 04/12/2020 09:31

Looking at this morning’s price action, we’ll be lucky to stay above £4!

Salty

[supremetwo] 03/12/2020 18:14

Next target a fiver? That's only 11.1%.

I reckon much more as soon as the economy gets back on track.

[saltaire111] 03/12/2020 16:51

I raise a glass to you Sid!

Great to see this through £4.50. Next target a fiver.

Salty

[eaaxs06] 03/12/2020 16:34

Nah, we're still up there, saltaire.

Looks to be shortage of stock at the close, with Bid/Offer price being 461/463.

A good auction could take out the previous high of 467.5p.

[saltaire111] 03/12/2020 15:57

I think you just jinxed it there Sid!!

It was nice while it lasted though ;)

[eaaxs06] 03/12/2020 15:38

Well, that's the 450p level busted bit-time, in fine style.

Let's hope we can stay there, with the old resistance level becoming the new support.

Goo0d luck everybody, Sid.

[sphere25] 03/12/2020 11:00

"On 9 November 2020, two significant announcements occurred on the same day, with ground-breaking news of a potential vaccine for COVID-19 and clarity on the outcome of the US election, which created a sharp spike in customer activity over a few hours. This caused issues across the market which unfortunately impacted our platform for a short period of time. While the total number of real-time trades placed on our D2C platform on 9 November was one of the highest on record, some of our customers, regrettably, experienced intermittent service issues during the afternoon. A full service was restored by the end of the day as our real-time monitoring and alerting capabilities triggered corrective actions over the course of the afternoon. We have carried out a detailed root-cause analysis and taken additional steps since the incident to further strengthen the resilience of our platform during times of unexpected market activity and volatility."

Clearly it's not just AJB but it's striking how brokerages always put out comments like this, and then come the next period of heightened volatility, the systems fall apart having negative implications for all of us.

Clearly it's a lovely market at the moment where you have shares consolidating gains after massive leaps higher or gradual trends higher as sellers get cleared at each pull back before the next legs higher. Platforms will be fine in this unstressed environment.

However, the markets do look overbought on the technicals on a short term basis so at some point you'd expect them to correct. There is alot of high fives and almost euphoria out there (guilty of quoting plenty of "fireworks" at this end recently) at times and when you see the hype around cypto with ramping across so many non-financial sites, you do wonder whether it is a good time now to begin reviewing the portfolio, risk and particularly any leverage to find a more neutral/comfortable stance as oppose to piling in on overbought conditions.

In the past when you have these overly bullish feelings, near term tops aren't a million miles away. One of the previous years when we had a big bullish run into year end, it was almost straight away in January that markets corrected.

Applying that to AJB, in those corrections, platforms still can experience outages particularly if there is too much leverage. Although, the real test will be looking further out when there are much more extreme level moves as algos pull orders, liquidity dries up and price moves are grossly exacerbated causing emotions to stir.

That will be the ultimate test of how much meaning there is to the quoted words above and how that influences investors confidence and trust in these platform providers.

Talk is cheap, performance is everything.

[thedogooder] 03/12/2020 08:05

We will break that resistance at 450 with those results in the next few working days 👍🏻👍🏻

[eaaxs06] 03/12/2020 08:04

Another attempt to break through the 450p level coming soon.

Good luck everybody, Sid.

[saltaire111] 03/12/2020 07:25

Superb results. Well done AJB!

Final results for the year ended 30 September 2020

AJ Bell plc ("AJ Bell" or the "Company"), one of the UK's largest investment platforms, today announces its final results for the year ended 30 September 2020.

Performance overview


-- Revenue up 21% to GBP126.7 million (FY19: GBP104.9 million)
-- Profit before tax (PBT) up 29% to GBP48.6 million (FY19:
GBP37.7 million)
-- PBT margin up 2.5 percentage points to 38.4% (FY19: 35.9%)
-- Balance sheet strengthened, with net assets up 27% in the
year to GBP109.5 million (FY19: GBP86.1 million)
-- Final dividend of 4.66 pence per share, which takes the total
ordinary dividend for the year to 6.16 pence per share, an
increase of 28%
-- Total customers increased by a record 63,239 in the year,
up 27% to 295,305 (FY19: 232,066)
-- Total net inflows of GBP4.2 billion (FY19: GBP3.9 billion),
driven by platform net inflows of GBP4.9 billion (FY19: GBP4.3
billion)
-- Total assets under administration (AUA) up 8% during the
year to GBP56.5 billion (FY19: GBP52.3 billion) compared
to a 19% fall in the FTSE All-Share Index
-- Customer retention rate remained high at 95.5% (FY19: 95.4%)
Andy Bell, Chief Executive Officer at AJ Bell, commented:

"This has been another year of strong growth, with high levels of new customers and record dealing activity driving a 29% increase in profit before tax to GBP48.6m. Our focus on providing an easy-to-use platform at a competitive price has resulted in growth in customer numbers and assets under administration of 27% and 8% respectively during a year when the FTSE All-Share Index fell by 19%.

"In light of this strong financial performance, the Board recommends a final ordinary dividend of 4.66p per share, taking the total ordinary dividend for the year to 6.16p per share. This is an increase of 28% on the previous year and extends our record of increasing our ordinary dividend every year since we paid our first dividend in 2004.

"The long-term growth drivers of the platform market remain strong, with customers increasingly looking for good value, online solutions and we are well positioned to benefit from those trends."

[thedogooder] 03/12/2020 07:15

Difficult not to like those results..growth in every department!!

[saltaire111] 01/12/2020 22:32

Another possible contender for AJB is Lloyds - now under new management.