Eadwig
09 Nov 2017
Re: Sold some in July sgd, "what has happened during the last 2 months to make you now decide to sell?"Nothing to do with the company other than the price. I thought there was a good chance I may be able to re-buy before ex-div date thus taking the dividend twice, as it were.Far more to do with personal accounting reasons, needing to generate cash at some point (I withdraw all my trading profits every year and re-start with the same amount that I have had invested for the last 15-20 years (plus a little bit for inflation). I do wonder about the reduced number of immigrants coming into the country should the government ever manage to enforce the policy. That will see demand fall off somewhat as Britain returns to an ever ageing population with population static or slowly decreasing. It may be that enough young, vigorous people who have started families here, or brought them with them, over the last dozen years do stay. Some will, obviously. I live in Poland though, much of the year, and what I am seeing is more and more people either returning to Poland where the economy is booming, not slowing, or choosing to work in Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark just to name those places actually mentioned to me by people in the last few months.I also see recruiters saying that they cannot fill job positions with employment levels high and little interest from EU persons to come to work here now. People from outside the EU similarly tend not to want to take a cut in wages or have the option to work in an ever growing Eurozone where wages are growing at a rate higher than inflation, despite the much higher unemployment rate.If there is a slow down in demand numbers, and that comes together with an increasing tendency to rent being met by 'Build-to-rent' providers and the possibility of a sudden glut of student properties being converted to housing if P.M. May gets her way and slashes foreign student numbers, then house prices will slow quite sharply while the market adjusts.If and when that happens, my first choice for re-buying house-builders is PSN, hopefully at the point the market over-reacts.Meanwhile, I'm diversifying a little into Build-to-rent, social and affordable housing specialists and some specialist commercial properties. I'm slowly divesting myself of student accommodation specialists (builders and renters) and general housebuilders. Overall, I'm still heavily invested in UK property which ultimately has never let me down over the last 20 years or so.Nice dividends in housebuilders, but I'm after a much bigger return than that and I can't see too much growth left here now at the recent highs. I could have timed my sale better, of course, but that is why we sell in tranches. We can't time the tops just like we can't time the bottoms.I do NOT see a house sector crash coming, although each rise in interest rates will hit stock prices and I do think inflation is more stubborn than the B of E believes it is, so there may be more rises than they are anticipating, despite a failing economy. Not a good scenario.I DO see a market correction sooner or later, of probably 20%-40%, if history is anything to go by. I want enough cash on hand to take advantage of that and now have over 20% of my portfolio in cash (being eaten away at over 3% p.a. by inflation). I can't wait for the ii account changes when I can convert some of my cash into other currencies, frankly.So, rambled on a bit, but you get the picture. Sorry for the late reply, I didn't see the quustion until this morning.I still hold a small tranche of PSN, by the way, which is worth about as much as my whole position was when I finished building it in 2011.Eadwig
Rhigos
08 Nov 2017
Re: Whacked I believe it was flat sales that caused today's sell off. Lot of profit taking going on I expect as SP may have got ahead of real valuation. IMO SP will recover over following months.From News tab:Flat sales at Persimmon weigh on housebuildersStockMarketWire | Wed, 8th November 2017 - 12
4Bad news from housebuilder Persimmon (PSN) had a negative read across for the sector, helping to keep the FTSE weighed down at around its opening level of 7,509 by midday.Persimmon said third quarter sales were flat year-on-year, causing the stock to fall 3.9% to £27.61.Its peers Barratt Development (BDEV) and Taylor Wimpey (TW.) fell 2.3% and 2.2% to 636.5p and 196.5p, respectively.
charlus
08 Nov 2017
Whacked almost 4% for saying the business was doing alright, trading in line with expectations.Glad there was no bad news to report....I see Barratt also got some stick today so maybe a general housebuilder thing.Maybe rumours that this Govt. has come to its senses and is going to dump Help to Buy. (or help to stupidly inflate house prices out of reach using taxpayer subsidy, as I prefer to call it).GLA,Cheers,Chozza
penny bun
08 Nov 2017
Re: Trading update oh well, but thats showing fall of 3.7% which is significant, wonder why so large? Staying put me, one of the best performing of my herd w/o doubt
malj1
08 Nov 2017
Re: Trading update Nothing less than solid.
rig mover
07 Nov 2017
Trading update No opinions about update tomorrow???
sgd
06 Oct 2017
Re: Sold some in July Apologies, Eadwig, not Earwig. Damn predictive text.
sgd
06 Oct 2017
Re: Sold some in July Earwig, your earlier post indicated a continuing hold so what has happened during the last 2 months to make you now decide to sell? Like you I think that PSN are a very well run company and have done very well for me. I am planning to continue to hold but would like to know whether I have missed something.
Eadwig
06 Oct 2017
Re: Sold some in July Sold half my remaining holding @2699p (holding priced @407p) yesterday. Including divs I figure that to be 780% profit over approx 6 years (several tranches bought and sold in 2010/11 to make up the final position).I still believe PSN are best of breed, they do gain most from an extended help to buy scheme, they still have no debt and they still have a timetable to pay cash back to shareholders up to and including 2021.They have consolidated their supply chain with their own brick maker and prefab factory, which protects them somewhat from inflation induced by a weak pound and bringing in supplies from the continent - and possible future tariffs also.If the price falls back, as share prices tend to, more than the dividend next year (I estimate something like 160pps in total) then I may well re-buy some - but in my ISA this time!Good luck. Eadwig.
charlus
31 Aug 2017
BBC London Quite a substantial feature on the benefits of homes built offsite and screwed together in situ on BBC London news tonight.. Sadly, the apartment block in Dalston that was featured was pre fabbed in Austria.Architect and London Mayor's minion very positive about cost reduction, time to build, reduced disruption, wastage etc etc.Played in a very positive light to address London's need for 50K new homes pa against actual of 25K. Or indeed UK's 200K need vs 100K actual (figures from memory and apologies if not 100% accurate).C'mon PSN, huge opportunity everything from urban apartment blocks to grand design self builders. Crank up the Space 4 division and give the Mayor a call and tell him how you canhelp fix his problem.Cheers,Chozza
Still learningafterallthistime
22 Aug 2017
Re: Results I hope they stick to the day job. Takeovers rarely add value and they have about 7 or 8 years land bank, so no need to buy a land bank "cheaply". BTR is a pretty low ROI business, so I hope they steer clear of that too. Return cash to shareholders, or keep some cash for a rainy day, don't spend it badly. if cash is about 1/8th of market cap I think they should return some.... Or buy in shares, but it is hard to see that they are at a discount to justify that. SL
Eadwig
22 Aug 2017
Re: Results charlus, "Another fine set of figures."!!! Phenomenal I would have said.charlus, "we are in a strong position to take advantage of opportunities as they arise"Yeah, I noticed that line too, and how much cash they have on hand. My bet is they make some kind of move toward the 'build-to-rent' market, to ease their reliance of difficult-to-get mortgages for future growth.You read it here first, folks!
charlus
22 Aug 2017
Results Another fine set of figures.Intrigued by CEO comment that "we are in a strong position to take advantage of opportunities as they arise" Or something like that anyway.Could an acquisition be on the cards?GLA,Chozza
Eadwig
08 Aug 2017
Re: Help To Buy Scare Glad to see Help to Buy being addressed. The scheme coming to an end with nothing else put in place, despite the extension to 2021, was starting to loom on the horizon as a possible stumbling block. Well done to Pref and any others who took the opportunity to buy in cheaply. I missed it myself during a hectic travelling schedule, though I still believe we're nearer the end of the cycle rather than starting the beginning of the next, so I would have only been purchasing for a trade.With the financial crisis truncating the last cycle (and causing the majority of smaller builders to shut up shop and retire) and the Brexit vote causing a false bottom during this cycle, its very difficult to tell where we are. I'll be surprised if history doesn't repeat itself and we end up with a period of falling house prices and people worrying about negative equity etc followed by a lull and then another period of rocket-fuelled growth. Or, perhaps we're seeing a change in the fundamental make-up of the market and the high levels of ownership in the UK.We'll have to see. The rocket-fuelled growth may already be starting in the 'build to let' market, but who knows when the government is so determined, at least vocally, to get involved? So far, they still haven't managed to make any difference to the fundamental fact that there is still a short-fall of housing in the UK, especially affordable housing, of around 500,000 to 1 million homes.It is that simple price, supply and demand curve that drives the share price growth ultimately.
Eadwig
08 Aug 2017
Sold some in July As I was on holiday, I'm only just getting around to posting up the sale of some of my PSN holding back in July. No particular reason for the sale, although I thought housebuilders may be nearing highs, due to Brexit uncertainties, real wages dropping, costs rising etc. More to the point, really, it enables me to carry on taking profits, always part of my modus operandi, as well as shifting cash into an ISA in the hope of avoiding CGT and dividend taxes in the future.I sold a little more than 1/5th of my last remaining tranche in PSN, part of the position I built in UK housebuilders through 2010/11 in anticipation of another growth cycle to match those of previous cycles, in which I haven't been disappointed.PSN, as I also anticipated, started paying dividends again first of the majors. My overall holding had an average of @407p after I averaged UP (something I very rarely do) with my last purchase. At @2380p, this most recent sale represented a profit of 585% over approx 6 years.In that time I've also collected a total of 485p per share (or 120% if you like. Or you could say the above sale was the equivalent of @2865p for a return of over 700%. The remaining 4/5ths of my last PSN tranche makes up approx 4% of my total trading portfolio (which is reset to the same amount at the start of each tax year), with 440pps dividend already timetabled through to July 2021, plus any interims they can squeeze on the way (nothing guaranteed, of course).I've always considered PSN best of breed in the sector, which is why I'm still holding them after having sold the other holdings (in RDW and BDEV) some time ago. I have traded in and out of many UK housing stocks also, including PSN, BDEV, BVS, TW, BKG, BOOT during the period, but successes are too numerous to mention individually. I also hold specialist niche builders, usually as REITs, and two smaller companies, TEF and INL which have been more challenging as I bought into them only late in the cycle.I have no worries about TEF, but INL was a play on social housing being boosted and that is looking less likely to happen and the share price has suffered as a consequence. They also had the misfortune to see a major contractor go under last summer, which delayed delivery of a significant number of units. With the smaller builders, you have to expect occasional setbacks, but also opportunities, as trading updates aren't smooth in terms of delivery, so the market often prices them down and reduces guidance for the full year. Incorrectly. This creates opportunities, as seen with TEF this year (I predict).
