BT share price

frenchplonka

Proper dumb question but can some one confirm the share price in BT atm its showing as 67.07 is this 67p or £67

Thrugelmir

Around 434p

Unsure what you are looking at. Wrong stock code possibly.

tower

I think you're looking at the US Market.

frenchplonka

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Around 434p

Unsure what you are looking at. Wrong stock code possibly.

When you say 434p your meaning £4.34p right? As a employee of BT im able to buy into there share save scheme at a %20 discount next year but in the mean time id like to invest monthly amount at the days rate till the option to join the scheme comes around next year.

As a complete novice whats the best way to do this as im looking to start this tomorrow

colsten

frenchplonka wrote: »

As a complete novice whats the best way to do this as im looking to start this tomorrow

Tomorrow? :eek:

Perhaps hold back with starting until you understand what you are doing, why you are doing it, and how to look up the share price?

frenchplonka wrote: »

in the mean time id like to invest monthly amount at the days rate

can you explain what you mean by that?

frenchplonka

colsten wrote: »

Tomorrow? :eek:

Perhaps hold back with starting until you understand what you are doing, why you are doing it, and how to look up the share price?

can you explain what you mean by that?

What I mean is at the moment I cant benefit from the 20% discount so im going to save around £100 a month into shares in the meantime in BT.

masonic

frenchplonka wrote: »

What I mean is at the moment I cant benefit from the 20% discount so im going to save around £100 a month into shares in the meantime in BT.

Why on earth would you want to load up on the shares of your employer on the open market when you are planning to buy more through sharesave next year? You will have a very concentrated portfolio and if BT gets into trouble, you will possibly face both a capital loss and loss of employment at the same time.

Edit: Also, why start a new thread when you had an existing discussion going on here?

colsten

It is not a very good (i.e. a dreadful) idea to sink all your money into a single share.

I also don't understand why you would want to buy a share at market price, just because a few months down the line you will be allowed to buy it on an employee purchase scheme. What is the rationale for this?

kangoora

BT has two schemes, directshare and saveshare. I'm not sure if the subsidiary you work for has exactly the same but this is how the BT schemes work.

Directshare is a monthly commitment up to £150 (£1800/year) buying shares without paying tax or NI on their price. They need to be held for 5 years before selling to avoid having to pay back the tax and NI. Buying shares without paying tax or NI on their purchase is good (especially if a HRT), it means the share price can drop a lot before you actually start to lose any money.

Also, BT (not sure if your company does this) allows you to sell shares within the directshare scheme and transfer the proceeds to your pension fund directly without any CGT on their maturity in September of each year (subject to holding them for 5 years). This is great, as you haven't paid tax and NI buying them and you get tax relief on the pension payments also

Saveshare is a 'savings' type plan, where you contract to save up to £300 per month and you have the option to purchase them at either the 3 or 5 year point at the option price, if I remember correctly it's 20% off current price for 3 years and 40% off current price for 5 years.

After 3 (or 5 years) you can buy those shares at the price from 3 (or 5) years ago with the money you have saved. You can then sell them at the current price. Great if the price has gone up as you are quids-in, even if the price has gone down it's not completely useless as you just don't use the option to buy and the money you saved gets returned to you so effectively you can't lose (apart from loss of interest on that money for the period).

You can also transfer the cash from saveshare shares sales proceeds into your pension but I've never looked into that one.

I've done pretty well out of BT shares since joining 12 years ago. One I cashed in for the money back as the price had dropped below the option price, the other I did very well out of with a 6-7 fold increase in the share price.

It's not 'guaranteed' easy money, BT shares 6 years ago were about £1 so if you buy them at £4+ and they drop again to £1 you've made a paper loss. At one point they hit £10 in the dotcom boom only to slide to £1 per share.

For saveshare, one thing you can't do any more is stop paying into a high option price, cash it in, and then take up a new saveshare at a lower price. The rule now is, even if you stop the savings, you can't re-invest into another scheme until your original one runs it's full period.

Re your share price query, you are looking at the BT USA shares listed on the New York stock exchange. You'll be buying the UK BT shares listed in the FTSE, currently 433.65 (£4.33 a share). This URL lists all the companies in the FTSE and their share prices

http://www.hl.co.uk/shares/stock-market-summary/ftse-100

Hope this is useful

Gadfium

kangoora wrote: »

Saveshare is a 'savings' type plan, where you contract to save up to £250 per month

Great post and very thorough. just one small correction- Sharesave is now up to £300 per month,

EdGasket

I was in Sharesave, my money tripled, I was £20K up but I was locked in and couldn't sell. Then guess what? Yep, by the time I could sell I wasn't making anything! Gutted.