National Grid Share Discussion Threads

[coxsmn] 12/1/2018 20:51

I like the value here and continue to add.

[utyinv] 12/1/2018 13:28

As posted earlier on ADR shorting interest in the US.

Data reveals the shorting of ADR's has reduced further by over 10% from 1.24m ADR's to 1.1m ADR's Bringing the total ADR's still showing as part of open shorts to 0.16% of the ADR's in Circ.

Just to put it into perspective, all major Stock that are quoted in the US are shorted to some degree and the amount of 'Short' interest in National Grid is extremely low compared with other stock across the spectrum....Pharm, Energy, Retails, Banks etc.

There are currently no 'Shorting' Interests recorded on the LSE - unless there are some that are not being disclosed :)

[gutterhead] 12/1/2018 12:56

You do get a sense with this share that when it rebounds, it will be strong/significant. A chartist would confirm this I’m sure.

[utyinv] 12/1/2018 10:55

db125,

Good point, I had thought of that but it could backfire.

If the select Committee say that the system isn't working; then if in the future there is a Labour Gov then in the deliberations in Parliament to Nationalise the industry, they could point to the investigation by the 'Impartial' committee :(

[db125] 12/1/2018 09:57

Not a TM sympathizer, but maybe she realizes that the price cap nonsense will produce nothing useful and she can point to the committee's impeccable left wing credentials.

[utyinv] 12/1/2018 08:50

I am a little concerned why Pettigrew isn’t reassuring the ‘City’ through regular PR presentations. Steve Holliday was always giving a presentation to ‘City’ analysts and market movers.

We aren’t in the close period so where is he and his team? It’s the CEO’s job to reassure the Markets protecting the main deliverable he has and that’s shareholder value.

Also, I don’t know if many of you have watched any of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee who are looking into the proposed Energy Price Cap and grilling OFGEM and other participants in the Energy Sector?

The Committee is made up of a ‘Chair’ (a voting Chair) and others:
Rachel Reeves (Chair) Labour
Vernon Coaker. Labour
Drew Henley. SNP
Stephen Kerr. Conservative
Peter Kyle. Labour
Ian Liddel-Grainger. Conservative
Rachel Maclean. Conservative
Albert Owen. Labour
Mark Pawsey. Conservative
Antoinette Sandbach. Conservative
Anne Turkey. Labour

There appears to be a Labour’Chair’
Five Labour Five Conservative and one SNP. WHat the hell is TM doing in allowing the select committee to have a majority of Left Wing politicians?
Five Labour One SNP (both Parties are Left Wing) and five Conservatives. I thought we had a Conservative Government? Maybe TM has washed her hands of the Energy business and thrown them to wives who wish to destroy the industry.

I would recommend anyone to send TM a letter questioning how such a Committee can be politically impartial.

[veryniceperson] 11/1/2018 23:43

Warranty. They may just drop Corbyn about a year before the election off 2022. Maybe a new leader with the sane agenda. Politics and the people, you never know, but I hope your right.

[bountyhunter] 11/1/2018 18:13

Good point warranty, many fearing losing their inheritance may have also been dissuaded from voting Tory so assuming they don't make that mistake again and TM doesn't make a big hash up of Brexit the political threats to NG. may be overrated by the market.

[bountyhunter] 11/1/2018 17:14

UI. Yes they were right to address the social care issue but the timing was wrong and more importantly it came across as stealing your house so that was the problem. I couldn't even fully understand the proposals which certainly lacked clarity (and I'm a programmer) so no wonder many of the elderly who may not have been in perfect health were put off voting Tory because of that last minute unnecessary addition to the Tory manifesto. I can't believe that the Tories would stab themselves in the back like that again but now their destiny seems to be very much intertwined with how TM handles Brexit.

[utyinv] 11/1/2018 16:32

Bounty:

re: Given that it would be easy not to make that mistake again maybe things don't look so dire for the Tories next time around so the political negativities re NG may be overdone..


I hope you are right. However, with Hunt taking on Social Care, he has a reputation for putting the cat amongst the pigeons. Some of the things he says ... its the way he says it... winds people up. I have a number of Doctors in the family and they are pretty annoyed with how Hunt is going about tackling the hard issues.

I know under his remit for health he always did have the responsibility for Social Care too but putting it into his title gives me an uneasy feeling they may not have learnt from their mistakes. I sincerely hope I am wrong in this instance. We all know Dementia and 'Care' have to be tackled and as it is now, the system to pay for care is more punitive, ie, if you need care, any assets over £23k is taken by local authorities to pay for your bill, but spelling out in the manifesto they can take the asset of your house and publishing it in the manifesto the way they did was political suicide. IMO

[kenmitch] 11/1/2018 11:41

Good post utyinv and I agree with all of it.

The sector as a whole is doing badly, and again for reasons you covered, but also utilities sector is often a poor performer in late stage bull markets. Then utilities outperform and can even go up in bear markets.

Current NG. weakness looks a good buying opportunity but sector probably hasn’t bottomed yet, so with luck even better opportunity coming.

[bountyhunter] 11/1/2018 09:45

UtyINV - TM certainly scored a huge own goal with the dementia tax proposals immediately prior to the GE. Given that it would be easy not to make that mistake again maybe things don't look so dire for the Tories next time around so the political negativities re NG may be overdone.

Re the effect of dividend reinvestment I notice the share price is going up today so maybe there was a short delay in reinvestment. On script divis some of the larger ftse companies such as Shell have recently cancelled the script divi option so I wonder if NG is considering going down the same road.

Atlantic - I'm also looking forward to watching that film.

[atlantic57] 10/1/2018 19:32

UtyINV Thanks for the input being pm is a demanding and probably a thankless task.

i am looking forwards to watching the film on Winstons time as pm.

[utyinv] 10/1/2018 19:09

atlantic57,

And me too!

Especially as when there are dividends being dished out, a lot of investors usually re-invest to buy more shares.

Other than political issues there are only a couple of reasons that call to mind that may cause such a drop:

1) the scrip issue was based on a price of £8.748 and those that may have received their shares might have taken fright in the stampede to sell, or/and,

2) a Staff Sharesave has just matured and many small option holders might have cashed in their shares to pay for Christmas. You will be surprised how many people think for the now rather than what they might need next year. People do tend to overspend at Christmas digging their heads into the sand to forget miserable times / weather.

A friend of mine has spoken to Andrew Bonfield (CFO) and there is nothing at all in the Company performance that is justifying the fall from grace other than negative sentiment created by political incompetence, both from the Left Wing Marxists and indeed the irresponsible actions by the PM in announcing blanket price caps without qualifying the statement first. She appears to fuel Hedge Fund shorting dreams by making damaging statements. Before TM should say anything she should think how her statement may be used to damage the economy.

Just like the GE manifesto I believe TM is listening to bad advice and is surrounding herself with incompetence. A good Prime Minister would have good advisers and having been burnt by an unbelievable GE manifesto I would have thought that 'once bitten twice shy', would be the order for future announcements.

TM might be a good run of the mill minister but I don't think she is Conservative PM material. After all, why go after the pensioners and professionals and ostracise your core voters. Left Wing anarchists will never vote Conservative no matter how much money you give them or how much time you spend with them. When the push comes to shove they will ALWAYS vote Labour.

She has much to learn. Or maybe she is getting pressure from her husband who just smiles at the camera's but dreads the day she took up the job :)

[atlantic57] 10/1/2018 18:36

Well whatever your political standpoint the price action seems puzzling to me.

1) There is a very good yield

2) The business appears sound

3) There does not seem to be any imminent political threat.

The Pice action is baffling to me

[bountyhunter] 10/1/2018 13:31

...or any good news re the UK recently? ...all part of a disconnected master plan to scupper brexit ;-(
imho

[arf dysg] 10/1/2018 13:02

Late in 1945?

[utyinv] 10/1/2018 12:54

db125,

Overdone IMO.

Markets are not showing much logic right now.

If you look at Carillion, the shares were being shorted yet the shares stayed robust until the results where they gave a profit warning. So someone knew exactly what was going on with Carillion hence the large number of shorts.

NG is robust fundamentally and there aren’t any disclosed reported shorts over here and very little on the other side of the pond.

I don’t believe it’s just the Threat of the Marx Bros, I also think TM with her ignorant Blanket Price Cap statement has damaged sentiment in the Sector. Even Prof Littlechild (ex Regulator) has come out in the press to say such a political statement was ill thought out and bears no relevance in tackling the issues of the ‘big six retain energy’ companies. She has concentrated too much on Brexit and failed to undertake a watchful eye on the economy. Maybe she has had too many mince pies and time off? Maybe as a minister she was well suited but has yet to prove herself as an effective PM.

There is hope really. Especially with the re-balancing of business making it increasingly swayed towards the US and the restructures that follow. RIO had a restructure in 2016 and decided to leave areas of low profitability. They were priced at £16 / share then, now they are close to £41 / share. So even though NG has fallen drastically if the Management fair well in future strategy the opposite can happen and instead of falling they COULD reach new highs in less than no time. It’s all about sentiment and fundamentals remaining to be solid along with maintaining the Dividend policy of RPI+. BTW RPI is running at 4% so 46.11p divi for this year expected. That makes a 5.5% divi yield (when the economy is still struggling thats a good income) and expected to deliver a 30.62p divi in Aug. Then next year another sale of Gas Dist (expected to deliver another £3billion to shareholders - price and deal already set from previous deal).
So in essence, though it may fall further the future is a lot brighter than the media let on. Don’t forget the BBC as well as other news channels along with Newspapers are all focused on delivering bad news. Bad news and fear is far more powerful than the emotion from good news. When was the last time the BBC gave out all good news????

AIMOO!

[db125] 10/1/2018 12:08

Worryingly falling while NG makes daily purchases of 1m-2m shares!

[utyinv] 10/1/2018 11:16

Yes it is Newbank.

There is a trend that at 08:30 the share price falls (as if some auto computer trading machines are switched on) and then again at 09:30 (as if another batch of trading machines are switched on).

It tends to fall quite drastically and rise quite slowly but the overall trend is down which doesn't make sense as the fundamentals show the Company is performing well.

[newbank] 10/1/2018 10:35

This is very unusual.

Normally as divi's are issued many re-invest pushing the share price up.

[prewar] 10/1/2018 05:30

Newbank, dunno I haven't done the calculation, I just thought your logic was wrong. Depending on the time period they were talking about you'd have to make adjustments for normal dividends and possibly the consolidation and special divi.

Normal dividend adjustment would obviously only be those where not gone xd in opening position.

Personally I think the post Brexit high was a market error, people thought ng had lots of dollar earnings and weak pound would make this have a big impact on future sterling expressed results. My limited understanding is that this is hedged so would be mitigated to a large degree.

[newbank] 09/1/2018 21:42

Prewar,

Thanks, but if you chuck in the consolidation the figures are worse aren't they?

Inclusion of Divi's and Special Divi - agreed!