Ripley94
17 Oct 2017
Re: limit lifted. Market did not like today's RNS down 20% as downgrades expected. Blaming weather for slower growth , no longer a growth stock which was the attraction. ( Green Morning )Wait.
lotcangorong
17 Oct 2017
Shall I buy some now? By StockMarketWire | Fri, 6th October 2017 - 10
0Citigroup today reaffirms its buy investment rating on Merlin Entertainments PLC (LON:MERL) and set its price target at 565p.
Hardboy
11 Oct 2017
Re: Seaworld I'm not sure they need any more brands at the moment. The ones they have are developing well; besides with current debt levels and rising interest rates I wouldn't be too keen on them borrowing lots, or a share dilution at this stage. if anything I would think take over rumours like that would have a negative effect on the share price.
Damp Seaweed
11 Oct 2017
Seaworld Quote from BBC lunchtime;''If you were hoping your annual Merlin pass would soon cover visits to SeaWorld in the US then you're not in luck.UK-based entertainment giant Merlin - which runs Legoland theme parks round the world and also owns Madam Tussauds and the London Eye - says it's not in talks to buy Seaworld.There were reports last week that a possible deal was on the horizon.''I wonder if MERL will now drift down to pre rumour levels. ?
Hardboy
06 Oct 2017
Re: O/T Charting etc FAO Hardboy Eadwig,Thanks a lot for the detailed, well thought out & well explained analysis. I think a lot of what you say is true; and humans do trade via emotions, so it is well to understand the kind of logic/reactions they use. I certainly believe in support & resistance levels. People naturally pick round numbers as their targets to buy or sell, so automated trades get triggered round those numbers. (I avoid round numbers for any of my automated trades.) There is no doubt many professionals and enthusiastic amateurs rely on technical analysis - especially momentum trading; and I think because of this there is a tendency for stocks to overshoot to the upside or downside; The more people who use these techniques the more influence they will have on share prices. I am a member of an Investment Club - not one where we pool our money, one where we meet once a month to discuss markets, and tips etc. The format is we have a rolling chairman and take it in terms to do a presentation, and also have a set topic for a group discussion each month. Most of the people in the group are serious traders/investors and most are technical analysts. I find it hard to credit when they announced they have invested in a company without having the foggiest idea what the company does, or if it is even profitable; but they seem to make some money. And I do pick up some of their broad principals. (You don't live anywhere near Henley do you?)However I think this is mainly only useful for short term trading (nothing wrong with that) and in the long term a company's share price will reflect its fundamentals. The main investors who drive markets are Pension Funds, and large fund managers; who generally are more interested in fundamentals. I equate chartism - which can only tell you for certain where you've been, never where you're going - to a motorist stopping to ask the way to their destination, and the person they ask says, they can't tell them the route to go unless they see where they have been. At anyone time, you are where you are, and the future is all that matters. News is what drives share prices in the long run and to have confidence in one's investment one has to have some understanding of the company's business and what affects it. I read (not in much detail) a technical analysis about Sky recently. The article was talking about where the share price was going, and never once did they mention the fact the Fox has a take-over bid in place for it. (Though the length of time Mrs Bradley is taking to give an official OK or not to the bid is so ridiculous that one might as well ignore it all together.) I sometimes read on these boards posters enquiring what has caused a big share price movement. Usually it's obvious from news, but unpredictable from the charts. I will remain a fundamentalist, but I will stay aware of chartism & traders' likely affects on price movement.Good luck, your majesty, and thanks for the detailed post.
Eadwig
06 Oct 2017
O/T Charting etc FAO Hardboy Hardboy,I have been very busy one way or another so haven't had time to respond to you with promised stuff about charts and my slightly changed attitude towards using some techniques. Its been on my mind so I've adapted something I wrote on the GLEN board a few months ago as part of a charting debate. I've picked out a situation which I believe will be familiar to many of us. Hopefully this will make my explanation and the logic more understandable (maybe even immediately applicable) and illustrate how paying attention to charts can sometimes help one make better decisions and increase profits or decrease losses.>>> "One thing I've learnt from reading texts on charting which rings true to me is that some people who buy at or near the top of the market will sit tight if a stock price then falls away, rather than sell at a loss.They may sit on a stock for months or even years and then finally sell, with a sense of relief, as the stock comes back to break-even. This rings true to me because I have been guilty of it a number of times myself in the past.In my limited understanding, this behaviour creates a price resistance level as a stock comes back to previous highs. This often causes a pause in upward momentum. Since grasping this idea, I've been far more disciplined in continuing to hold a stock that has been coming back well but then apparently stalled. In fact I'm often expecting it now before it happens. With MERL, we might see it at, for example, around @525p, but before then maybe @470-480p (see chart below). A little patience will often see the 'relief sales' peter out (you can sometimes see this on the volume indicators) before the stock carries on its recent upward trend. With some stocks you can actually successfully predict (and I have) 'once it breaks 'x' level, it will move up quickly to 'y' level'. (See TEF board).When it has finally moved above the resistance level on strong volumes, this has enabled me to continue to hold with confidence and finally dump the dog at a higher level. Thus, it at least paid me back a return of a few percent over the time I have been holding while underwater. Maybe the equivalent amount of a reasonable dividend being paid over the same period.A much better result overall, I think you'll agree, if not exactly a storming success.A couple of years ago I would probably have cursed softly and sold at break-even, happy to at least get out without a paper loss, but fully conscious of the opportunity cost not shown on paper. I would then curse even more loudly when the momentum re-started that I had originally bought for and waited so long to see, but was no longer in a position to benefit from."Hope this is useful to you. I'm sure it will ring true to some extent in your experience.Eadwig
Eadwig
06 Oct 2017
Re: Added @447p and 444p Sold one of those tranches @265p yesterday, to slip back to holding three tranches, which is where I intended to be. Made enough profit to bring my average down to @420p from @430p.So, I still have a tranche to play with to achieve my stated plan from the start to hold 4 tranches average of @400p for the long term (maybe 10 years, although more like 9 now).Eadwig
Eadwig
18 Sep 2017
Re: Added @447p and 444p Hardboy, "When you talk about the active orders list, the default settings only list orders placed in the last month."Yes, I tested that and you are 100% correct. I've written to ii tyo tell them to change it. An active list should include all active orders, after all, especially as they can be a maximum of 3 months old anyway. It isn't going to break the system.Have to rush to the post office. Will get back later on your other stuff.Eadwig
Hardboy
15 Sep 2017
Re: Added @447p and 444p Eadwig, you have to understand the ii system. I've made similar mistakes to you, and that is how you learn. Whenever you set an automated trade it is worth double checking than any previous trade for that share has been cancelled. When you talk about the active orders list, the default settings only list orders placed in the last month. There are date tabs you can change to open it up to 3 months or whatever you want. So the active orders list is only the active orders placed in the last month list. As for markets, I think, like you (or was it Bill?) I've been expecting a market correction all year, and it's never really come. But you're right - terrorism in London, possible rate rise in the UK, real wages falling in relation to inflation (but - and I do wish media folk would do their sums - if the number of people in work has risen and the average wage increase has risen less than inflation, it could be the increase in employment is all at the bottom end of the pay scale, and individual wage rises are keeping pace OK.) Mad man with a nuclear weapon (or is it 2 mad men?) Large rebuilding work in the Caribbean, Mexico & South East US. Etc. Incidently, have you ever looked at Aggreko? I'm not recommending them as they've been through a bit of a tough time, but may be coming out the other end now. They are one company who benefit from natural disasters. (Largest supplier of portable/temporary power in the world I believe.) The first time I bought in to them, was, fortuitously the day before the Tsunami hit Japan. The timing (unusually for me) turned out to be perfect.
Eadwig
15 Sep 2017
@440p Yeah well, after my adds below, the price was always going to hit @440p - which is the price I had set myself a few months ago for my next entry point (see previous posts).See where impatience gets you?Stick with the plan, Eadwig!All I need now is the markets to crash which will drag everything down and my 4th tranche is already bought.I assume these drops are all about the strength of the GBP recently (didn't stop Cologne fans visiting London en-masse yesterday did it?), hurricane damage and/or disruption in Orlando, possibly worries about Lego restructuring, some kind of incident on the London tube today, which may or may not be terrorist related ...oh, and the potential for nuclear war in the vicinity of their Asian assets ..Still a STRONG BUY - I hope anyone who took note of my post earlier in the week has filled their boots.
Eadwig
15 Sep 2017
Added @447p and 444p Bit of a screw-up here possibly. I thought I'd cancelled the limit order @448p and reset it at 445p. It appears both have executed. I'll have to check back on that with ii, but at the moment I have two more tranches, making four in total, which is as far as I want to go. I wonder if the @445p one was set so long ago it was not showing on the active orders list. If that is the case, ii need to be told that ALL active orders should be shown irrespective of dates.If the above does turn out to be correct, it would explain a couple of similar problems I've had previously.Assuming these are both valid, I'll trade one on a net 5% return, inc stamp duty and costs. I want to keep some head room to carry on trading this position. The above two transactions take my average holding to @430pEadwig
Eadwig
12 Sep 2017
Re: Range Bound Hardboy, "Chartists don't recognise a hurricane is about to destroy a company's major site. "That is a very good point, although Orlando appears to have dodged a bullet. There may be other MERL assets elsewhere in Florida plus at the very least they will have lost a week or so of business at Orlando, I suspect.
Hardboy
11 Sep 2017
Re: Range Bound It always baffles me how an indicator can be called Relative STRENGTH Indicator when it takes no account of volume. If volumes are low there is not strength in any movement. And for me that is indicative of chartist techniques. I went to a talk once given by a broker, who was saying how good RSI was and how he used it. I asked him how RSI was calculated, and he had no idea. I have seen in my career many occasions when people have used statistics, they did not understand, with catastrophic results. However I agree that more and more individuals and institutions use charting techniques (I am a member of an Investor Group who get together once a month to discuss things, and I am one of only 2 or maybe 3 fundamentalists. The others, by enlarge have no idea what companies they invest in actually do, let alone the state of their finance and business. And these are serious investors (or maybe traders.)) So obviously they will have an increasing effect. My view is stick to fundamentals, by all means look at charts for momentum and support and resistance levels, and I find the effect of chartism tends to make markets over react, so some bad news from a company and the share price will fall - probably to a correct level, but then continue falling to levels where they are real bargains, and equally good news will see shares rise and keep on rising, and that usually means it's time to sell but there will be a good entry point in the not too distant future when one can buy more shares for less money. Chartists don't recognise a hurricane is about to destroy a company's major site.
Eadwig
11 Sep 2017
Re: Range Bound Hardboy, "Oh Eadwig, your Royal Highness, please tell me you're not turning into a chartist! "With all due caveats, my investment in MERL in terms of buying opportunities has always been based on the price volatility shown on the charts I've included with many of my posts.I have found some charting techniques increasingly useful, I must admit. I'm talking very basic stuff like relative strength index (RSI), MACD and stochastics to indicate overbought or oversold, the former all need to be backed by volume to be meaningful, and moving averages can often indicate a stock that is taking off or crashing, and I've found helpful, to a dgree, in setting stop losses too. I do also believe as so much algorithmic, high volume, high frequency trading (HFT) influences the markets these days, its as well to have some knowledge of what these computer programs are working off, as certain chart patterns may be not much better than reading goat's entrails, they will become a self-fulfilling prophecy if enough HFT funds weigh in based on them.I think I've written up some of the basics I've found useful somewhere, and why. If I can find it I'll pass you a link and you can see what you think. I'd appreciate any view. If I can't find it, when I get time I'll write one up and put it somewhere you can read it. Probably a useful exercise for me to ensure my thinking has some logic and sense involved still.The above also includes some definite correlations in volume in *some* certain stocks on moving average 'cross-overs' that I happened to notice. Its very hard to deny when you see such a correlation, especially once you have identified it, then expect it as a share price moves, and it is confirmed by a similar reaction. If I am predicting the future, even to that degree, something is going on worth investigation.Eadwig, Stock-picker.
Eadwig
11 Sep 2017
Buying Opportunity Coming Up? MERL may well take a hit this week on news of hurricane damage in Florida. Orlando is a major centre for them, probably second only to London, (haven't checked that) and the hurricane is travelling up the Orlando side of the peninsular. Any specific mention of Orlando being hit will hit the MERL share price.Hurricane wind damage followed by flooding can be devastating (I travelled the Katrina area 1 year after the event and it truly had to be seen to be believed. Smashed businesses, buildings reduced to rubble, communities still abandoned, ripped up tarmac roads including sections of interstate that still had the top missing,all the more staggering considering it was in the world's richest country one full year after the event).It will hit MERL's trading this quarter, but only to a degree. The main season is over, but only because children are back at school, the Florida tourist season is all year round and in fact, prices traditionally go up in the Winter. I'm assuming MERL do best during the summer school holidays though.So, my message is BUY. Wait for the price to be hit then take your opportunity, this is NOT going to upset the long-term growth story that is MERL.For a fun, largely children's entertainment company, MERL seems particularly vulnerable to the worst things in life such a terrorism and natural disasters! However, it is what it is, and I make no apology for turning such incidents into personal opportunities, even if that does leave something of a bad taste.I'm removing my @445p limit price, but actually, I think I'll be lucky to get that. Who knows though? Maybe MERL's other than full occupancy hotels in Orlando will be packed for the next few weeks with refugees? Difficult to predict, but as a bit of cheer-leader for MERL here, I feel I have to let people know what I think.Good luck all!
