Bt Shares

paulross8105

Hi, I currently have abit of surplus cash and was considering investing in some by shares. 

The share price has halved and value of the company has halved. There are interests from other companies from USA and Germany to take it over. 

I was wondering if anyone with good knowledge out there could let me know if this would be a risky investment or the right time to buy shares? 

csgohan4

buying individual shares is going to more risky compared to buying funds with lots of companies in them. No guarantee of bounceback

You could apply the same logic to the IAG, airlines industry or hospitality sector and hope they will shoot up after a vaccine is found. 

Now where did I leave my crystal ball

you could lurk on the speculative thread and have a look. Seems like Apple, Tesla these days

EdGasketTheSecond

The share price halved in 2018 from the 2015 peak of 500, now it has more than halved again. That could be a trend or they could be super cheap, you decide and take your chance.

lr1277

There was an article in Friday’s Investors Chronicle.
The gist was BT are going to spend something like £12 billion improving UK’s broadband.
Currently UK is 32nd in the world for broadband. We are behind Madagascar. You can read why in the article.
Five years ago UK was getting 0-10 mega bits per second for broadband downloads. South Korea had 1 giga bits per second. They had so much capacity and speed they weren’t using it fully.
The current pandemic has exposed UK’s lack of broadband capacity with say 4 people at home using broadband for their own needs. Connections dropping, pixelated pictures etc.
The costs of improving broadband may be passed onto customers, depends on the regulator. Otherwise the shareholders foot the bill either with reduced dividends or lower share price.

DireEmblem

BT is on my list of companies to look at, they have a lot of potential, but then an awful lot of things that need worked on.

Take yesterday.  I decided it would be cheaper to pay the one month £25 BT sport subscription, and watch Arsenal vs Liverpool at home.  This was a couple hours before the match.

I logged into my account, it had an option to ‘restart’ my monthly BT sport membership, but it didn’t work.

I had similar faff a year earlier when I signed up.  Fair enough it was on the same day - around 10am, but they couldn’t set my account up in time for me to watch the evening football, and had the cheek to start my billing on that same day.

I can’t be the only one with issues surely.

fwor

paulross8105 said:

The share price has halved and value of the company has halved.

I have clear memories of seeing something similar a few years ago, with the share price more than halving - from around £12 to around £5, with plenty of international opportunities on offer. So I stuck a cheeky £5k in and it fairly quickly turned into £1k.

I no longer hold any BT shares individually, though I'm sure the company is present in a number of my collective investments...

adam06_2

I invested in lloyds shares back during the 2008 financial crisis, they went from aound£4  per share to about 40p per share... Bargain I thought as they will definitely recover once the crisis is sorted.. Am still waiting... If you can afford to loose it and are willing to take a risk then go for it... But definitely not easy money.

AnotherJoe

Buying something just because its gone down is NOT a winning investment strategy !

The comment I've heard is that BT is a pension fund that happens to run a small Telco.

Maybe it will come back up, but as the phrase goes, dont try to catch a falling knife.

Apple and Tesla would be safer bets, they aren't sure things by any means,  they are at all time highs but if you gave me (say) £5k to put in one share, it would  be one of those two and BT wouldnt be third.

And from my other thread, if you really are just gambling take a look at SEA (ticker SE) and Gores Metropoulous ( GMHI)

These are all speculative wild bets. And I'd say all are a better bet than BT.

I'll buy one of the latter two end of this month.

RyanHello

I have been investing for a few years, i would personally stay away from single stock shares. Too risky
You should be focusing on your stocks and shares ISA allowance and buying funds with lots of companies in. When you've used your allowance up (£20,000), then maybe look at a few more investment opportunities, if you have the budget.

C_Mababejive

My very best advice to the average investor is dont buy individual shares as it may well be a very painful experience. Invest in diversified vehicles such as funds ,investment trusts or ETFs.  CTY is "cheap" now and undoubtedly contains BT. The joke is that BT is a pension scheme that sells phone services.  Maybe openreach will be spun off as a separate concern? Someone has to pay for all that fibre rollout so that joe public can shop,watch netflix and girlie movies. It cant surely be shareholders as they have suffered enough and theres no more meat on the bone.

Gadfium

I wouldn't touch BT shares with a bargepole and I work for them! I used to have a chunk ( >£70K) but I've gradually sold them off. I'm only left with about £7K's worth mainly because I throw a few quid every month into a SIP. Even that is currently showing a deficit (£10k in, current worth £5K). The remainder is the last of a Sharesave scheme....I missed the boat on selling £7Ks worth and they are now under water to the tune of 65%. I don't see the medium term prospects being any good, especially with the management crew currently running the show.