You can confidently own this stock at the bottom. Never chase, as over the past decade, it is still downtrending and over the past 3 years, trying to form a base. This sort of price action will take a long time to turnaround (if any), hence, when you have a price gain of 15%-20% or more, always sell some as it will take years to turnaround.
When BAT was trading near 10, HLIB projected Dividends for BAT: FYE Dec FY23f FY24f FY25f DPS (sen) 67.8 71.5 74.4 Dividend yield 6.7% 7.1% 7.4%
Basically, they are projecting DPS to fall in 2023 to 67.8 sen. Do you believe them? What's your own independent view?
BAT has cut dividends in first half 2023 from 42 sen down to 29 sen, due to lower H1/23 earnings of 30.7 sen. To get 67 sen means BAT has to declare 38 sen in H2/23 vs 46 sen in H2/22. I suppose that is also a possible, if you are pessimistic that BAT bottom is not yet in sight and dividends will continue to be cut over next 6 months.
BAT is a responsible dividend payor targetting typically around 96% payout. So, how much dividends you get is directly linked to BAT's future earnings.
My GTC order to buy at 10.02 has expired. So, I am keying in a new GTC order for 10.00 and ready to buy more below 10.
From Price Target perspective, nice to see that with HLIB no longer recommending Buy. This means, no more analyst give Buy recommendation. Finally! Analysts have capitulated!
So, as a contrarian, IMHO, the next 1-3 years is likely to be a good time to accumulate on weakness. If you don't chase and let price comes to you, then, eventually, there will be mini-rallies, and with a low average price, more chance to have paper gains that you can unlock.
For a downtrending stock, always take some profits when you have them (e.g. more than 2 year dividend gains, since odds are price is more likely to downtrend).
The risk with owning a downtrending stock is lower prices and your capital tied up for a long time. Hence, allocate a limit like 5% of portfolio and don't buy anymore once hit 5% so that the rest of your portfolio is not tied up to one downtrending stock. This is super important rule. So, plan your buys right from the start assuming limited bullets.
Premium Cig is for Die-Hard smokers, New Trend is Vape and HNB. If Gov impose just 10% taxes on Vape, it will WIPE-out illegal Vape which is commanding 55% of All smoking in Malaysia. I say RM70mil spend on VAPE in 2nd Qr is just the beginning of another Heavy promotion. Capturing Vape market is BAT survival and Heavy Dividend distribution will start 1Qr 2024-----When Vape command 80% of smoking market illegal Cigs will die of natural Death ( It is cheaper to smoke Vape than Cigs ---10% Tax )
@williamh, why do you say BAT is the only best buy stock at this time? What about its consistently declining earnings over the past 8 years? 2015 - 312 sen 2016 - 232 sen: -26% decline 2017 - 169 sen: -27% decline 2018 - 155 sen: -8% decline 2019 - 118 sen: -24% decline 2020 - 83 sen: -30% decline 2021 - 91 sen: +18% growth 2022 - 88 sen: -10% decline 2023TTM - 75 sen: - 15% decline.
If 2023 YE EPS is say 70 sen, then, dividends will get cut again.
The question is can BAT really arrest its consistent decline in EPS? Out of past 8 years, its EPS decline 7 out of 8 times. A betting man will say BAT EPS will decline again in 2023, and maybe even 2024. Maybe next 8 years, BAT earnings may decline 7 out of 8 times again i.e. if this happens, you'll see lower and lower prices the longer you hold on to this stock.
To me, I own BAT but only for speculative reason, and never own more than 4%-5% of my portfolio because there are many better stocks out there than BAT.
When picking bottom in BAT, you need to be philosophical about it. - If BAT fills you at the bottom, odds are good you will be able to capture at least 10-15% gain later. - If BAT doesn't fill you at the bottom and you missed it, so be it - it means you are never meant to own BAT in the first place anyway.
But whatever you do, never chase BAT because this stock is downtrending, and there is also risk that at the capitulation point, it will crash hard one day. (but capitulation tend to rebound)
So, the only way to win (assuming not shorting), is: 1. Study price charts carefully. 2. Try to pick bottom of its swing. 3. Never chase the price. 4. When you have profits > say 10%-15%-20%-25%-30%, always take some partial profit by selling some into strength, so that when it makes lower price, your dividends give you the gains. 5. Eventually, BAT will do 20, 30, 40% price gains fast and that's when you must sell in strength - target to sell up to at least half in order to lower your average cost even more. 6. One day, BAT fortunes will reverse and you'll be thankful to still own say 1/3rd or 1/2 of what you bought.
If you use 2%-4% of your portfolio to punt like this, it is hard to lose - I've been making monies following this strategy. However, if you use 20%-40% of your portfolio, odds are very high that you will lose. You need to stay unbiased, unemotional and always be objective.
This strategy works for BAT because if you study its % decline in EPS, it's quite consistent - around 10%-25% decline in EPS. It doesn't work for many other rubbish stocks where the % decline in EPS can be 50% or more - then, the swing down is much harder to predict. Also, BAT is a respectable stock. However, this state of affairs is dynamic, i.e. things one day can change and you need to be in tune with the change. At the moment, BAT is still clearly a respectable stock.
Trying to win from the long side in a downtrend is not for the inexperienced nor faint hearted. For 99% investors, better to avoid BAT, as odds are too high, 99% investors will lose.
Actually, I am now starting to be cautious with BAT because the last price low was 9.26 in Mar 2020, 3.5 years ago. The Bollinger Band (BB) on weekly price chart is narrowing relative to past 10 years. The last time this happens is more than 10 years ago, and a breakout of the BB happens and it is quite substantial. In charts, there is the Principle of Alternation. It means if previously it does one thing, then, when the same condition repeats, there is majority odds that it does the opposite (no guarantees). So, as traders, we must always have a backup plan if something goes wrong. A smart back-up plan that ensures you win increases your probability of winning, even if the worst case happens.
So, imagine if price breaks below RM10 and goes down to RM9.2 and breaks below this. In this scenario, it means something extremely bad has happened to BAT. If it happens, what is your strategy? If your holdings is only around 4% portfolio when it gets to 9.2, it is highly unlikely that BAT will go bust in a straight way (but you need to assess that first at the time), and this is the time where if it gets to 8.x, you average down to say 6% of portfolio and be ready to sell in strength to lower your average price even lower than 8.x.
Averaging down is a skill. There are times to average down, and there are times not to average down. It is not automatic. If you always do this automatically, one day you will lose big.
My GTC order to buy BAT at 10.00 was filled. Chart wise looks negative biased - looks like there may be more downside to come. Will not chase, will let price comes to me.
Also, today, they just credited 16 sen dividend into my account. Always nice to receive dividends ... my average cost keeps getting lower and lower and is now at 9.67, notwitstanding that in the past I did buy at 10.8 some time ago. It helps to let go when price is high and buy back when price is low, and collect dividends along the way. With GTC orders, I don't even monitor the market at all, every night, I just quickly do a 5 second glance at the order status.
Price must be correlated with Earnings and Dividends. Last year, BAT EPS in Q1/2/3/4 = 18.3/25.7/26.4/21.6. This year, BAT EPS in Q1/2 = 14.1/16.6. This is poor performance this year. Last year, BAT DPS = 17/25/25/21. Note DPS is lower than EPS, as expected. High payout ratio too (96%). This year, BAT DPS = 13/16. Note DPS lower than EPS, as expected. High payout ratio too (94.4%). So, for BAT, the real question is - what will Q3 and Q4 EPS be? Q1+Q2 EPS was only 69% of Last Year. Hopefully, Q3+Q4 will be higher than 69% of Last Year.
Note that if this reduction is a permanent one, then, BAT price will be 69% of Last Year's Prices. So, if Last Year's prices ranges from 10 to 14, then, be ready to expect BAT prices in 2023 ranging from say 7 to 11 say. Market is giving BAT the benefit of the doubt now because whilst Q1+Q2 is 69%, nevertheless, if Q3 QR does not pick up, then, BAT will linger around 10. It needs a good QR i.e. the bias, if it's a neutral QR, will probably see lower prices ahead.
My prediction, is if Q3 EPS is near 25 sen (unlikely, but let say IF), then, there will probably be some relief rally. However, if Q3 EPS is say 18 sen (say 70% of 25sen), then, we'll see the strong support at RM10 be broken, in which case, it could go as low as RM8 depending on how much market panics. If RM10 support gets broken, don't chase the falling knife, but wait until it finds bottom.
Basically, you don't want to gamble on earnings announcements - we will know around end October.
I also believe market likes to alternate more often than not. If around 1 month prior to announcement (by end Sep) it shows a rally, then, quite likely after QR, it will fall below RM10 and vice versa. This is just probabilities - say 60% chance of happening i.e. not strong enough to bet big on this hypothesis.
But going into earnings in Q3, any strengths will see a sell on my part for that part acquired at RM10. Selling at RM11 is no shame, earning 10% gross in less than 2-3 months.
My guess is for FYE2023, BAT EPS will drop to around 70 sen +/- 3 sen. If true, it will be its worst, worst, worst ever earnings for an extremely long time. Just in 2015, BAT EPS was 312 sen. It will only be a quarter of 2015 EPS. However, in 2015, price range from 53 to 67, averaging at say 60. A quarter is 15, probably ranging from 12-18. However, the downtrend is not yet over since last decade/s. So, market marks it down further if it thinks this downtrend can get worse. Right now, 10 does give a buffer, but if next 2 quarterly earnings confirms how bad it is, then, market will mark it down further again.
The bias is towards more downside in the coming 12 months. Don't keep averaging down bigger and bigger and bigger in unlimited fashion when this happens. At least, sell a third to a half during the rallies at a profit. A smaller win is much more preferable than HUGE losses when we are wrong.
This book is the result of the author's many years of experience and observation throughout his 26 years in the stockbroking industry. It was written for general public to learn to invest based on facts and not on fantasies or hearsay....
5354_
4,809 posts
Posted by 5354_ > 2023-07-26 14:39 | Report Abuse
10.00 possible to touch?