Standard Life Shares

Yorkshireman_3

Yorkshireman wrote: »

Just out of interest --- ive shares in Pendragon and DGSi --- they pritty bottom at moment but im selling DGSi if they reach 26 p and prob buying more Pendragon ---- car industry hard times at moment but in 6 mths who knows forever the optomist Oh just watching a new one ETI.L not got ne shares but in future may risk a couple of quid :T

Sold the DGSI at good profit Holding the Pendragon - will be selling soon if goes to 12-15p - wish id had the money to buy ETI.L at this time - would now be selling at a good profit - but dont have that much money to gamble SL still undervalued in my humble opinion - but def a hold for the longer term :beer: Gl everyone and have a nice Easter.

StevieJ

Bit of an improvement last couple of days :T

ender4

ok, i bought about £8k worth of shares at the 5% discounted price when they first floated.

Then i got an extra 5% for holding them for 12 months.

So in effect, i got a 10% discount on floatation price.

How are the shares doing compared to whatever price i bought them at?

baby_boomer

You bought them at 218.5p and the 5% free shares bring this down to about 208p

They are now at 175p but you've also received a few useful dividends.

Since flotation they have matched the FTSE100, although they certainly haven't tracked it .

Yahoo Comparison Graph - Standard v the FTSE since flotation

sabretoothtigger

sabretoothtigger

A quite dire comedy video tipping Prudential : http://www.iii.co.uk/go?c=zxllnt&nl=91
Main point made is that the majority of profits are from asia and they may dispose of uk business altogether, if they got a decent amount for it the shareprice might then rise I suppose.
Resolution, a potential bidder is under fsa investigation I last heard, regarding their last very successful deal with pearl

They have too much american business for me to be interested and their capital reserves though seemingly good are still half of sl proportionally afaik so its not for me but Im posting here as its sector news and sl price seems to be determined by the bigger picture

Insurers rival banks for weakness after US bank JP Morgan issued a negative research note on the sector, highlighting insurers’ large exposure to bank debt. The US bank said Legal & General is the most exposed to ba nk hybrid debt. L&G is among the worst performers in the sector today, along with Friends Provident, Old Mutual and Prudential. RSA Insurance defies the trend and heads north, however.

If SL can be related to XLF then I'm told apparently the outlook is still positive for the xlf as long as it maintains a position above 9.10









Skip this if you dont like looking at charts but a good run down of Price vs volume is given in this video:
:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVQkpUZoq6U&feature=channel_page

Heres the chart link :
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/advchart/frames/frames.asp?symb=uk%3Astandard+life&time=8&freq=1

Heres the chart showing the last ten days of Standard life and what price did recent speculators buy SL at and so we can infer where will they sell at. Obviously high volumes of sellers means a bigger fall in the price is possible, etc




So a quick look at what might happen next seems to show Tues 31st Mar as a high volume day.

Alot of people traded around 164p that day and the next is lesser volume but the price rose so we might infer that either the price will hold fairly well at level or if it should fall below then the price has reason to drop much further as those 164p peoples stop loss kicks in, etc

sabretoothtigger

Another link to SL price info, this one seems to give info even on the after hours auction price bids. Also it mentions vwap which is volume weighted average price similar to the graph above.
Very roughly the present price being above vwap means the price might continue to hold or rise and below vwap means the price might go down

http://www.sharecrazy.com/share2607share/share.php?disp=share&epic=SL.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VWAP





Old News - The Observer, Sunday 8 March 2009

LIFE INSURERS £137BN DEBT PILE REVEALED,BUT £75BN "QUANTITATIVE EASING" MAY HELP SECTOR.


The full extent of the exposure of British life assurers to the plummeting corporate bond market was revealed last night when industry expert Ned Cazalet said the sector had invested around £137bn in such debt, with roughly two-thirds of it in banks and financial companies.

The market in corporate bonds, which are sold to investors by firms to fund borrowing, has been hit by the global financial crisis and by fears that companies could default on their debt repayments as the recession bites.

Cazalet says: "If the outlook on bond defaults deteriorates, then life insurers will have to set aside additional reserves; they are by far the biggest investors in this market. In fact, if they weren't such big investors, companies may not have been able to take on so much debt in the first place."

Last week, shares in UK life insurers were hit hard after AVIVA stunned the City with a pre-tax loss of £11.2bn, primarily due to falls in bond and equity markets. Aviva's shares fell by a third. Now attention is turning to Standard Life, which reports this week, and to Legal & General, which will do so the following week. Both are expected to go into the red. But insurers are likely to be key beneficiaries of the Bank of England's programme of quantitative easing, which will start with a £10bn shopping spree for government bonds on Wednesday. Later, it will buy corporate bonds, which could alleviate market jitters.

Investment managers will spend the coming days scouring their portfolios for assets they can sell to the Bank, which last week gave the economy a £75bn cash injection and cut interest rates to 0.5%.

No company has yet defaulted on its bond repayment obligations, but investors are worried it could happen. This has seen the value of corporate debt fall on markets where such instruments can be traded. Cazalet said: "It's not hard to see why people are fearful ¬ just look at the number of failed institutions that have issued bonds over the years: HBOS, RBS, AIG and Citigroup, to name a few." But he stressed that none has defaulted.

StevieJ

Thank, good site

sabretoothtigger

Yep, I will check on Tuesday how useful it is during the day but I dont much like their graphs


This is a graph of the American financials XLF with a very big break out on Friday, green is Standard Life showing a rough but strong correlation.






However it may be unlucky that USA trades on Monday afaik where we dont so potentially it could decline before the ftse ever opens.
The USA tax year ends on the 15th also so Im wondering if any momentum will be lost at that point

Serious contenders to replace Sir Sandy Crombie as chief executive of Standard Life are emerging after an initial shortlist containing about ten names began to circulate in the City last week.
The internal favourites to lead the insurer now that the formal recruitment process is under way are David Nish, the current finance director, and Keith Skeoch, who runs the fund management division, Standard Life Investments. A quartet of current and former Prudential directors, including two former chief executives, are among the external candidates likely to be considered.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article6087604.ece

Edinburgh is home to some of Britain’s largest life assurers, such as Standard Life, Scottish Widows – part of Lloyds – and the UK arm of Aegon, the Netherlands-based group that bought the demutualised Scottish Equitable in 1994. Despite Mr Campbell’s optimism, it is likely that they will have to trim costs unless markets recover soon. The expanded Lloyds group has said it intends to pursue a “multi-brand” strategy and will therefore keep both Scottish Widows and Clerical Medical, HBOS’s London-based life office – but there will clearly be scope for back-office savings.
Life assurance executives and fund managers are privately scathing about the damage the banking meltdown has done to the country’s reputation as the home of canny and carefully calculated investment.
About £460bn, or 14 per cent, of the total UK assets under management are managed in Scotland, primarily in Edinburgh. The city’s asset managers largely eschewed hedge funds and have limited exposure to toxic credit products. But since their income is tied to the level of funds under management, some slimming and consolidation of the crowded sector is expected.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bb255cb6-239a-11de-996a-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

Standard Life signs up to credit guarantee scheme

By Edward Lander | 08:30:00 | 15 April 2009
Standard Life is the only insurer to have joined the government’s £250 billion credit guarantee scheme (CGS).



The insurer’s 2008 annual report shows it raised £500 million by issuing debt through the CGS scheme, which the government launched last October to boost short-term liquidity in the
banking system.


Standard Life joined through its banking subsidiary and will use the money to support its mortgage book, which was worth £9.6 billion at the end of 2008, with arrears of 0.4%.

http://www.citywire.co.uk/personal/-/news/markets-companies-and-funds/content.aspx?ID=336628

sabretoothtigger

Subject to shareholder approval of these resolutions at the 2009 AGM, the Scrip reference price for the fully paid ordinary shares to be issued to shareholders who elect to receive the Scrip dividend alternative for the proposed final dividend for the year ended 31 December 2008, payable on 29 May 2009, will be 179.74 pence per share.
The Scrip reference price is calculated by taking the average mid-market price of the Company's shares over the five business days commencing on the ex-dividend date. In respect of the final dividend for 2008, this was the period 18 to 24 March 2009.
Scrip dividend timetable for 2008 final dividend


Ex-dividend date
18 March 2009
Scrip reference price calculation period
18 - 24 March 2009
Record date
20 March 2009
Last date for receipt of Scrip elections
13 May 2009
Dividend payment/ Scrip issue date
29 May 2009


Further details of the proposed Scrip dividend scheme will be sent to shareholders along with their AGM documents on 14 April 2009 and will be available on our website www.standardlife.com from that date.

https://www.bankofscotlandhalifaxmarketwatch.co.uk/security.cgi?csi=186960&action=news&story_id=2704576&rns=1



Worth a thought, its not that great a discount but seems like a bit of a free option to me. 3 weeks to speculate between the fixed price window and receiving the potentially cheap shares

I'm expecting a fallback before then but who knows