A day to hide other news. 86,000 shares have changed hands today with the price falling 10% to 27p.

Come on you money-men, it can't just be the news that Gav has taken the afternoon off can it?

-- Anonymous, December 19, 2001

Answers

This will be cameron hall developments selling off before they go belly up

-- Anonymous, December 19, 2001

This was on Look North, too. Apparently 13% was the total fall today. We are now valued at 39 million according to them.

-- Anonymous, December 19, 2001

Actually Swift is buying out the club, too. Note his prediction elsewhere...;-)

-- Anonymous, December 19, 2001

A good way to get track of the financial side of NUFC is to use the Hemscott website http://www.hemscott.com/equities/company/cd03338.htm This URL takes you straight to all the financial info about the club

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

Jesus. Someone dumped 600,000 shares at lunchtime...

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

That would be typical - go to the top of the league only for the whole thing to go tits-up and we have to sell half the players.

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

Hmm, I think something a bit bizarre is going on here..

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

Clarky, have you a view?

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

Wheyhey - there go another 100,000, price down to 23.5p, pass me my brown trousers would you Susan?

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

Jesus - this has to be a reaction to Cameron Hall's problems, doesn't it? I mean, we can currently pay our bills and are top of the league and generally less worrisome than Leeds or Chelsea. If it carries on like this, trading will be suspended.

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

718,000 sold today after yesterday's 100,000.

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

It is a little strange if you consider our chances of Europe and the money that will come with it are higher then they have been for a while.

Perhaps Barclays are forcing NTL to sell their shares into a uninterested market, having to reduce the price to find buyers.

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

This is indeed worrying news..... :(( Come on Roly, tell me it's alright!?

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

Well, bearing in mind the volume involved, you'd have to assume it was one of the few institutional investors...

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

If someone wanted to stage a takeover, there are going to be fewer better circumstances than the current ones.

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

Isn't it bloody typical that we are worrying when we should be happy for once?

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

Sorry gang, I've been really busy and only just noticed this. I'll need to research it a bit - but these volumes are significant.

NTL don't own any Ordinary Shares any longer - they sold them to FS - so it ain't them.

It would be very strange if either CHD or a financial institution was selling shares into the open market - they would seek to sell them privately - because they would know precisely what impact that would have - and indeed has had! However, CHD is in a bloody financial mess, so if they can't find a private buyer they could be selling......nah, I can't believe it is them. Has to be someone else.....not sure, need to think.

Roly's input on this would be great -

Roly

, where the hell are you?

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

Anyone got an e-mail address for the barber pole boy?

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

The only other major institutional investor is Legal and General with 4% of the shares. They could be offloading.

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

Quote off Reuters newswire about the fall yesterday "People have been trying to get out and probably decided today is a good time to sell," an analyst told Reuters. "People have already decided their lead won't last." Still doesnt explain today's fall however....

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

What I want to know is If people are unloading their shares and getting out, who is buying them up? There has to be some one snapping up the reduce price shares? WHO?

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

816,000 in one day. This has to be a new record for open sale, surely?

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

800 thou at 30p??? quarter mill?.. peanuts

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

That's only 0.6% of all shares. Is that a significant volume or not?

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

Obviously there aren't many buyers around. Whoever's selling must need to sell to raise cash or something, as they're getting a sh@tty price. Perhaps Douglas Hall needs some cash for some Christmas presents?

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

Gene - spot on mate. The identity of whoever thinks it's a good buy price is of more interest than whoever's currently taking a loss IMO. There again that may be because I don't personally own any NUFC stock - terrible sector to be in if you're a long-term investor (or even a trader most of the time??)

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

Kiwi, not overall but in a single day for this type of share, it's massive!

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

do you really want roly and his tenuous conspiracy theories.

bored or just unimaginative?

its probably just some institutional investor getting out of the sector cos lets face it, its a crap business.

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

George's cynicism and worldly ennui cheers everyone up again.

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

Just back. No nearer a theory as to what is going on. Just checked and there were 1.126m (0.78%) shares traded today, bringing the price down to only 23.5p!!

I doubt any of the Toon Directors or Legal & General are responsible for this selling activity - it would just be irresponsible and stupid for them to sell in the open market, raising relatively small sums of money while concurrently corpsing the Company's share price by one- third.

There were several sizeable trades of which the biggest were 469k and 250k, plus three others around 40k. These are significant trades, given the total daily volume is normally less than say 50k.

Regarding who the buyers might be. The "market makers" could simply be accumulating shares that they haven't been able to totally resell - this would perhaps be indicated by the steep drop in asking price, as they seek in this way to encourage buyers.

Being machievellian, it is of course, entirely possible that FS could be accumulating the available shares. If he is intending to take the company private this kind of apparently undisciplined selling plays very neatly into his hands.

I'm sorry gang, but simply don't know the answer. They may be someone with a vested interest playing games with options - however, we would need someone like Roly to indicate the sort of thing that might be going on in that arena.

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

tax planning?

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

.... this is the UK Georgie - financial year ends 31 March. Could be all our US investors dumping it, I guess. ;0{]

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

oh, right. march 31st - why is that?

nothing to worry about though, if the company was about to go belly up then you'd expect a far greater rush for exits than 0.8% or 300k.

i reckon its just somebody realizing that the only people who get rich in this business are in their mid 20s, fast runners and able to hit the top corner from 35 yds.

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

Maybe the shares are being shorted so that Freddie can increase his stake again? This is a technique of selling shares you don't actually have - you have to then buy them in the market hopefully at a lower price and pocket the difference. There are more honest and useful ways to make money. :-)

Alternatively, perhaps they heard that Swift is going to do the website and are worried that the increase in taxi fares will push the club's finances over the edge. Or maybe the appearance of Les Battersby in a Toon shirt has sent shock waves through The City? :-)

The price falls because sellers outnumber buyers. The market makers will be holding the shares and pushing the price down to a level where buyers come in again to clear the market.

As an aside here, these market makers, brokers, teenage scribblers and other assorted ne-er-do-wells or more accurately ne-er-do- anythings amuse me greatly. Whenever the subject of left wing politics was mooted the issue of bureaucracy would be raised and the appalling spectre of inefficiency and cost of all the planners you would need etc. Yet capitalism's own bureaucracy is these spivs pushing (virtual) pieces of paper about. They don't do a damn thing except make a fluid market. They don't make cars, food, they don't cure or entertain anyone. And they are paid a fortune for this mass inefficiency. Some of the top paid amongst them are fund managers who invest your pension funds or unit trusts etc. MOST of them can't even outperform the Footsie index which means you would have every chance of doing better with a copy of the FT, a blindfold, and a pin.

Discuss :-)

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

..... very profound gb, actually.

I've just noticed an article in this morning's Journal about yesterday's sell off. Vinay Bedi of Wise Speke is a broker who has extensively followed the Footbal Club Sector, and even he seems bemused at what is going on. He is quoted as saying "It is rather surprising to see the share price falling on a day when the news on the pitch is so positive. On the one hand, the City has the potential of CL football next season and all the knock- on benefits that provides, but it looks as though the negative news, possibly in relation to NTL's ongoing problems, has caused the sp to fall back".

Another Football Club Analyst at William deBroe, Nigel Hawkins, was quoted as saying "Football sp's only tend to rise at the end of the season when there was a definite pospect of silverware" but he admitted there were no obvious reasons for the NUFC plc sp slide.
"There have been rumours for some time of the Club being taken private, but in the lead-up to Xmas the market tends to be pretty saggy, and a combination of lack of interest and a lack of news tends to stunt investment".

Well, there you have it, directly from the mouths of the City's top experts, ie. nee bugga knaas watz gannin urn!!

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

jonno, you seem to be talking about 2 types of spiv.

type 1) broadly characterised as the back office spivs in the financial services sector.

you seem to imply that these spivs have no importance in the grand scheme of things. try this-

firms need capital (cash) to operate, that's why they issue shares. investors buy shares because they think the company is going to reward them with even more money in the form of dividends or capital gain. however, what happens if the investor doesn't want its shares any more.

the stock market is a big second hand shop that allows folk to unload the stuff they don't want. it provides liquidity. the absence of liquidity would deter investors and ultimately starve firms of capital. the knock on effect would be that we'd all be independent farmers and tradespeople engaged in a barter system (which might be ok) and there'd be no tellies and no skysports3.

type 1 spivs also don't get paid much.

type 2 spivs - fund managers exist because we all think that we're smarter than we actually are. you're right in that you'd be better off buying the FTSE index versus investing in a specific fund or stock. but hey, we bet on horses and football teams as well and bookies are well paid, its the same thing!

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2001

More going again today....

-- Anonymous, December 21, 2001

Piece in The Journal this morning reckons it is financial institutions that are dumping the shares.

They say the Club's market capitalisation is now so small it has dropped out of the 'LSE Small Caps Index', that Insitutional investors will generally not hold shares outside this Index and are all seeking to dump any holdings of NUFC plc.

My own instinct is that we are at the point where a buy-out/takeover is becoming almost inevitable - by FS or indeed someone else. The more successful we are on the field, the more likely this will become - as possible suitors consider the potential upside associated with CL participation. This could also satisfy Barclays desire to force CHD to liquidate their shareholding to pay down their outstanding debt.

Just as things finally appear to be taking shape on the playing field, this is not a comfortable or desirable situation.

-- Anonymous, December 21, 2001

Another 1.8m shares traded today, dragging the share price down to 22p!

-- Anonymous, December 21, 2001

If the stock has moved out of all funds that would use it in a tracking basket of funds it will drop dramatically. In the States the share trading at teh end of December and the other periods whjen they rejog the companies who are in the NASDAQ 100 or the DOw jones 30 is amazing.

All the fund managers have to be seen to be owning a balanced portfolio of shares in companies that will match the market as it moves. So when Vodafone was 15% of the UK market all the funds had to have at elast 15% of Vodafone in them, which bumped up demand and a virtuous, for someone, circle begins.

At the other end as shares devalue and do not appear in FTSE 100 or in less tracking indices then they are not needed, or wanted by fund managers and are subsequently sold. If somone owned a million NUFC shares bought at 65p say, and don't need to own them at 32p or 25p or 23p then they'll just sell them.

-- Anonymous, December 21, 2001

The only slight flaw I can see in The Journal's argument so far Macbeth is that Legal & General owned 4.2% of the Toon, say 6m shares.

Something like 2.2m shares have traded in the last 2 days, so hopefully L&G aren't following this LSE Small Caps Index edict. Otherwise, they probably still have another 4.5-5.0m shares to dump into the market that would drag the sp down even further, and certainly well below 20p.

If they buy my takeover theory, they are more likely to hold on and seek to sell their entire holding to someone looking to buy up the Company 'lock, stock and two local dickheads'! ;0{]

-- Anonymous, December 21, 2001

Would any of our more clued up city commentators care to assess how the free-fall in the share price is likely effect the chances of strengthening the squad?

-- Anonymous, December 22, 2001