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Earlier today I sold my holding of Booker PLC (Epic Code BOK) in my Income Portfolio at 182p, banking a Profit of 45% (with probably another 5% on top from Dividends) from a holding period of about 1 year. There is a lot to like about BOK - it has a habit of paying out Special Dividends and the Uptrend is just nothing short of superb. It was a nice fit in my Income Portfolio (full details of this Portfolio can be seen on my ‘Trades / Portfolios’ webpage) as the nature of small Corner Shops means a pretty defensive sector. I could easily have made a decision to continue to hold BOK and the chances are that it can go higher as the Momentum of the Uptrend continues to do its magic.
However, my reasons for Selling were as follows:
According to ShareScope, BOK has Results on Friday 16th October - it is quite possible that it rises prior to these Results or could even rise on the announcement - it’s impossible to know. All we can do is make our best judgements on the information available at the time and go with the flow. I will probably have got it wrong, but there will be no point in beating myself up if I have - I am moving onto the new Pastures of ESP. Thanks BOK, you were a merry travelling companion. Valuation As ever on my Blogs, the ShareScope screenshots displayed in all their luxuriousness below are taken as the situation was late last night when I made my Decision to sell BOK. I have been monitoring BOK for many weeks and it was clear to me that it was getting a bit toppy - my interest in ESP was the final straw for me to kick BOK out. If you look at the ‘Details’ screen below, you should see in the Top Right Hand Corner that the Consensus Forecast Earnings Per Share (EPS) for 2017 is 7.73p - at the Share Price of 185p, this means the Forward P/E Ratio is 24 (185p divided by 7.73p). BOK has quite a Cash Pile, which the screen below shows as 8.1p per Share (I am being lazy here - if you check the latest Results there might be a slightly different figure) - these figures will be from the last Year End Results but are good enough for my purposes), if we allow for this, then the Forward P/E Ratio for 2017 is still a heady 23. After writing this I noticed on the Trading Update from 3rd September that the Cash has dropped to £110m - so the picture is worse than my P/E Calculation of 23. I am sure you have heard me say many times before that a P/E of 20 is on the high side and I would certainly not be buying stuff on such a High Rating (except if it is has exceptionally high growth potential like ARM Holdings - not for a flippin’ Grocery seller !!). I might hold something on such a Rating, but as I said above, it is a sort of ‘useless’ position because I can’t sensibly top it up. For more detail on this, read my Blog Series on ‘Reasons for Selling’ which you can find here (I think it has 5 parts despite the title !!): http://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/blog/when-is-it-time-to-dump-a-stock-an-overview-of-wheeliedealers-sell-triggers-part-1-of-2 BOK has a habit of paying out Special Dividends - it is likely that for 2016 it will pay an extra 3.5p to Shareholders on top of the usual Divvy - so this means the total should be 8.65p. This will give a Dividend Yield for 2016 of 4.7% - which is pretty good and would be fine for my Income Portfolio. The only problem with Special Dividends is that they are easy for the Management to withdraw from in the Future - and with the Stock on such a high P/E Rating, there is not much scope from Earnings to pay high dividends. I’ll explain that last bit above. A Stock’s ‘Earnings Yield’ is the inverse of its P/E Ratio. So, for BOK on a P/E of 24, the Earnings Yield is 4.16% (you divide 100 by 24 and express as a percentage) - this means that if BOK paid out all of its Earnings then it could only really pay out a 4.16% Divvy - so you can see that the Special Divvys might not be sustainable for long. For the record, ESP should pay a Dividend Yield around 5.4% and has scope for this to rise over time.
Technicals
I just wanted to show the beautiful Long Term Uptrend - it takes a brave Man or Woman to sell out of such a great trend !!
The Chart Below shows the Shorter Term Uptrend for the last year.
On the Chart below, I have zoomed in to just a few months. My Red Arrow marks a Horizontal Red Line which is the All Time High for the Share Price - a Breakout over here would probably mean some more quick gains for Holders.
The Blue Arrow marks a Blue Circle which I have drawn around an ‘Inverted Hammer’ Candlestick that was generated yesterday - in the context of the recent run up in the Price, this suggests the Shares will fall in the coming days. This is the Signal that most tells me it is time to sell. Remember, these are Short Term Indicators. My decision to Sell is really based on the Valuation and other stuff I bulleted earlier in this text - these Technical Bits just highlight that in the Short Term it is probably a good time to Sell. The Price might move down a bit and then keep on going up and take out the All Time High. Or it might not.
The Chart below shows the Bollinger Bands - my Black Arrow shows that as of Last Night the Share Price was up against the Top Bollie Band. The Price can ‘hug’ the Band and keep moving up but the usual behaviour is that it moves away from the Band - so it is likely to fall.
The last chart is of the Weekly Candles. My Green Arrow points to the Candle that was formed last Week and this was an ‘Inverted Hammer’ which (like on the Daily Chart above) is bearish in the context of the Run up in recent Weeks. My Blue Arrow shows the Price Action this week so far (only 2 days so not all that helpful) and note how it has so far not been able to take out the High of the previous week.
Right, that’s it. Expect a Blog on ESP over coming days - might be early next week. Cheers, WD
2 Comments
catsick
21/10/2015 01:20:23 pm
I think its a sell too, the price is too high now and all it will take is a whiff of some pressure from Aldi and Lidl and the shares will be creamed like tsco and sbry , they may not be in the same sector but they will feel the knock on effect of the heavy discounters chipping away at their market share ,
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WheelieDealer
22/10/2015 12:14:07 am
Hi catsick, thanks for your thoughts - I agree that BOK price looks too high and they cannot be immune from the Discounters and the likes of SBRY opening competing Convenience Stores, and your Oz example gives a clear roadmap. As you say, P/E 24 is way too high when the Risks are considered and there ain't much in the way of growth, cheers WD
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