BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Discuss your favourite picks, broker, and trading or investment style.
User avatar
ghariton
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 15954
Joined: 18 Feb 2005 18:59
Location: Ottawa

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by ghariton »

JaydoubleU wrote:I'm not sure that Bell will want to buy MBT or Bell Aliant. Astral Media was a different strategy altogether.
Indeed.

I suspect that the present team finds telecommunications boring.
couldn't BCE try to build its own content, perhaps in a smaller, less threatening way?
I believe that George Cope is a man in a hurry. Any way, there isn't enough good Canadian content to fill existing distribution channels. Where would BCE get the building blocks to build new?
If its BIG they want to be, couldn't they consider buying telecom or media assets outside of Canada?
Could I interest you in some securities issued by Bell Canada International (BCI)?

George
The juice is worth the squeeze
User avatar
Descartes
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 1856
Joined: 03 Nov 2008 09:59

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by Descartes »

JaydoubleU wrote:
Down about 2%. Good enough for me to catch the knife.
Does that mean you bought some?
Yes, but not a huge amount more. It was not a great drop but I'm fairly confident it will recover and I had the cash sitting around.

I was under the impression that Manitoba Telecom has not been of interest to any of the potential suitors in Canada and was hoping for a little foreign ownership action instead.
"A dividend is a dictate of management. A capital gain is a whim of the market."
User avatar
Descartes
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 1856
Joined: 03 Nov 2008 09:59

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by Descartes »

Bell-Astral deal: BCE submits new $3.38-billion proposal to CRTC

Another kick at the can...
“We heard Canadians and the CRTC loud and clear — they want assurance that Astral joining with Bell Media will directly benefit consumers and creators,” BCE chief executive and president George Cope said in the statement.

“We’re ready to deliver more choice for listeners and viewers, more opportunity for content creators, and more competition for the broadcasting industry,” Cope said.

“Bell and Astral are happy to move forward with a new proposal that benefits all Canadians, in both official languages, in communities large and small across the nation, with new ideas, new funding and new choices.”

Ian Greenberg, president and CEO of Astral Media, said the companies are “committed to making sure that the consumer always comes first.”
"A dividend is a dictate of management. A capital gain is a whim of the market."
User avatar
Descartes
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 1856
Joined: 03 Nov 2008 09:59

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by Descartes »

Descartes wrote:
JaydoubleU wrote:
Down about 2%. Good enough for me to catch the knife.
Does that mean you bought some?
Yes, but not a huge amount more. It was not a great drop but I'm fairly confident it will recover and I had the cash sitting around.
Well that took a while but I finally earned over a buck a share I bought in October.
This is why I can't understand people who say the market is efficient or intelligent.
Nothing has changed with BCE except market perception but I made money simply because I'm more patient than they are (...as long as the company pays a dividend).
"A dividend is a dictate of management. A capital gain is a whim of the market."
User avatar
Bylo Selhi
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 29494
Joined: 16 Feb 2005 10:36
Location: Waterloo, ON
Contact:

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by Bylo Selhi »

Descartes wrote:This is why I can't understand people who say the market is efficient...
Perhaps you don't understand what market efficiency means ;)
Nothing has changed with BCE except market perception but I made money simply because I'm more patient than they are...
Nothing?

1. Changes in market perception aren't relevant? (Tell that to RIM and AAPL shareholders who are currently experiencing the effects of changes in market perception ;))

2. You bought in October. It's now three months later. Surely things have changed with BCE. In particular they reported 3Q12 results in November with substantial increases in activations (i.e. sales) but substantial decreases in financials. How is that "nothing"?
I finally earned over a buck a share... as long as the company pays a dividend
BCE's quarterly dividend is slightly more than half of your "buck a share" so as much as half of the NAV change you've seen could be attributed to trading before/after a dividend payment.
Sedulously eschew obfuscatory hyperverbosity and prolixity.
User avatar
StuBee
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 2944
Joined: 21 Sep 2010 11:08
Location: SW Quebec

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by StuBee »

Descartes wrote: Well that took a while but I finally earned over a buck a share I bought in October.
This is why I can't understand people who say the market is efficient or intelligent.
Nothing has changed with BCE except market perception but I made money simply because I'm more patient than they are (...as long as the company pays a dividend).
Good for you to have made about 33 cents per month in (unrealized?) CG since October of 2012!! However, I have made an average of 45 cents per month in unrealized CG since my BCE purchase (1700 shares) in December.....of 2008 :P. (Of course, I have not done as well elsewhere :oops: )
"The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning."-C.S.Lewis, The Last Battle
User avatar
Descartes
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 1856
Joined: 03 Nov 2008 09:59

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by Descartes »

Gee, you guys are so mean when all I wanted to do was childishly announce that I was finally right about buying in October ;)

By market efficiency, or lack thereof, I mean that the price of BCE did not instantly and accurately reflect all knowledge of the company (or the economy in general). My premise is that the market has just finally realized it overreacted to the Astral failure with CRTC.

Yes, I assert that nothing significant has changed and you are welcome to dispute it. My argument:
We are roughly in the same period of time with regard to dividend schedule as before.
We are in the same situation with CRTC and Astral (the new proposal came out soon afterwards to no appreciable effect on the stock price).
Nothing substantially changed in the company's prospects.
The only two things to have changed, in my opinion, are: I collected a dividend payment and some CG and the market has recovered from its overreaction.

The market is not a sum of intelligences. It is just an average and, happily, some of the participants continue to bring down the curve.
"A dividend is a dictate of management. A capital gain is a whim of the market."
User avatar
StuBee
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 2944
Joined: 21 Sep 2010 11:08
Location: SW Quebec

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by StuBee »

Descartes wrote:The market is not a sum of intelligences. It is just an average and, happily, some of the participants continue to bring down the curve.
ISTM that if you believe in a company, and you have new money, this type of short-term market behaviour can play in your favor. You can "purchase on the cheap". But then again, you have to believe in the company to "bet against the crowd". Therefore, if you believe in the company, it ought to be a long-term hold. And, finally, if it is a long-term hold, then what difference does a CG of a buck make???

I confess that I am of the "buy and hold" type. In an ideal world, I would never sell... I also confess my frequent inability to make sound choices as to the make up of my own portfolio. So, when I perceive that one of my choices has no future I will (belatedly) sell...Fortunately, I have "won" more often than I have "lost" (inspite of myself).

It is the "old" companies that have withstood the test of time and are committed to distrbuting a reasonable amount of their profits to their owners which have rewarded me the most. Patience... patience... patience.
"The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning."-C.S.Lewis, The Last Battle
User avatar
ghariton
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 15954
Joined: 18 Feb 2005 18:59
Location: Ottawa

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by ghariton »

A quick look at Yahoo finance shows that, over the last three months, BCE.TO is up 4% while XIU.TO is up almost 6%.

Looking at the past six months, BCE.TO is up 5% while XIU.TO is up 12%.

Over any period of time, half of stocks (weighted by market capitalization) will do better than the index, and half will do worse. Some will do a lot better and some will do a lot worse.

This, by itself, doesn't exactly provide any support for active stock-picking.

George
The juice is worth the squeeze
Doodle
Newcomer
Newcomer
Posts: 5
Joined: 03 Nov 2012 18:30

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by Doodle »

George
Do your numbers include dividends?
User avatar
ghariton
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 15954
Joined: 18 Feb 2005 18:59
Location: Ottawa

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by ghariton »

Doodle wrote:George
Do your numbers include dividends?
No. As I said it was a quick look. But I doubt that including dividends would make a big enough difference to reverse my observations.

George
The juice is worth the squeeze
like_to_retire
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 5923
Joined: 27 Feb 2005 07:14
Location: Canada

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by like_to_retire »

ghariton wrote:Over any period of time, half of stocks (weighted by market capitalization) will do better than the index, and half will do worse. Some will do a lot better and some will do a lot worse.

This, by itself, doesn't exactly provide any support for active stock-picking.
How do you account for The Dogs of the TSX beating the index 18 out of the last 25 years. If the reinvested dividends are included, for the last 25 years the BTSX enjoys an advantage of +71.1%.

I've used a modified Dogs of the TSX method for the last year and two months and I've handily beat the index (and it includes BCE).

Surely 25 years is a long enough sample size.

ltr
User avatar
Bylo Selhi
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 29494
Joined: 16 Feb 2005 10:36
Location: Waterloo, ON
Contact:

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by Bylo Selhi »

like_to_retire wrote:Surely 25 years is a long enough sample size.
"You might very well think that; I couldn't possibly commentbet on it"
Q. You've said that investing in an actively managed fund (as opposed to a passively run index fund) is an act of faith. What do you mean?
A. Under normal circumstances, it takes between 20 and 800 years [of monitoring performance] to statistically prove that a money manager is skillful, not lucky.

Q. Hold it. Did you say 800 years?
A. That's right. To be 95 percent certain that a manager is not just lucky, it can easily take nearly a millennium-which is a lot more than most people have in mind when they say "long-term." Even to be only 75 percent sure he's skillful, you'd generally have to track a manager's performance for between 16 and 115 years.
Then again, maybe the Canadian market, BTSX and Stanley aren't what Aronson considers "normal circumstances" ;)
Sedulously eschew obfuscatory hyperverbosity and prolixity.
User avatar
newguy
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 8088
Joined: 10 May 2009 18:24
Location: Montreal

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by newguy »

I just looked at that btsx page and it's not clear where the 25 year numbers come from. Is it based on the decisions made when the indexes changed or is it from looking back at 25 years of tsx 60 data? You have to test it forward for the results to mean anything, you can't look back and say 'this is what I would have done'.

newguy
like_to_retire
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 5923
Joined: 27 Feb 2005 07:14
Location: Canada

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by like_to_retire »

newguy wrote:I just looked at that btsx page and it's not clear where the 25 year numbers come from. Is it based on the decisions made when the indexes changed or is it from looking back at 25 years of tsx 60 data? You have to test it forward for the results to mean anything, you can't look back and say 'this is what I would have done'.

newguy
It's based on David Stanley doing it every year for 25 years and reporting about his results every year.

ltr
User avatar
Shakespeare
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 23396
Joined: 15 Feb 2005 23:25
Location: Calgary, AB

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by Shakespeare »

Unfortunately, due to index/methodology changes only the past couple of years can be counted (since the switch to the 60 without former income trusts, which was something like three or four years ago).
Sic transit gloria mundi. Tuesday is usually worse. - Robert A. Heinlein, Starman Jones
User avatar
Pickles
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 4215
Joined: 27 Sep 2006 09:44
Location: Toronto

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by Pickles »

And yet another thread gets taken off topic. :roll: It happens so easily and I'm not saying anyone has hijacked the thread, just that this thread is for posts on BCE not a general discussion on dogs or cats or rats or elephants of the TSE nor methodology.

This is a jolly good time to find an appropriate thread to carry on your new discussion if y'all have something more to add. Many thanks.
Regards,
Pickles
User avatar
newguy
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 8088
Joined: 10 May 2009 18:24
Location: Montreal

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by newguy »

Pickles wrote:And yet another thread gets taken off topic.
Or tangential. I thought the discussion was whether or not BCE's high dividend was important. BCE would be in a dogs strategy and the implication is it would beat the index. If the whole dogs strategy is bunk then comparisons to BCE are meaningless.

newguy
User avatar
StuBee
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 2944
Joined: 21 Sep 2010 11:08
Location: SW Quebec

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by StuBee »

A few comments...

From a cursory read of a slide show available at Canadian Money Saver by David Stanley I gather that performance data from before 1996 is a result of back-testing. But, to be fair, since 1996 it is "front tested". To complicate matters, the S&P TSX 60 index was preceded by the TSX 35. This transition must of taken place sometime over the 25 year period. I wonder how they treated Income trusts (yet another question mark).
By definition, once a year they "manipulate" the yield. This can only be upwards. The yield therefore is consistently higher. Theoretically, the yield comes down during the ensuing year (as the laggards catch up...). This has a very powerful effect on the portion of the return which is provided by the DRIP. (I wonder how much of a hassle it is to maintain this DRIP especially when the constituents are redetermined at each anniversary...).
I gather that there is very little churn. However this could have a very negative effect (due to the tax consequences). Any churning will (on average) result in realized capital gains. This will reduce your real yield. Finally the whole DRIP part cannot apply if the dividends are being spent.

So, a lot of question marks. Admittedly, many of my observations would also affect other types of dividend based portfolios.

The American counterpart has been around for a very long time. I certainly cannot argue with that...

Anyhow, too many question marks for me to consider it anyway especially since my unrealized capital gains represent 50% of my portfolio. It is too late. To implement this strategy right now, would be portfolio suicide (death by taxes...)

Just another opinion.

StuBee

N.B. you are right about being OT (but I didn't want my prose to somehow get lost in cyberspace...)
"The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning."-C.S.Lewis, The Last Battle
User avatar
AltaRed
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 33398
Joined: 05 Mar 2005 20:04
Location: Ogopogo Land

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by AltaRed »

Pickles wrote:And yet another thread gets taken off topic. :roll: It happens so easily and I'm not saying anyone has hijacked the thread, just that this thread is for posts on BCE not a general discussion on dogs or cats or rats or elephants of the TSE nor methodology.

This is a jolly good time to find an appropriate thread to carry on your new discussion if y'all have something more to add. Many thanks.
I agree. Take it to the Dogs of the TSE/TSX thread
Imagefiniki, the Canadian financial wiki The go-to place to bolster your financial freedom
User avatar
Shakespeare
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 23396
Joined: 15 Feb 2005 23:25
Location: Calgary, AB

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by Shakespeare »

Telecoms down with a big "thump" at open. Probably because of Verizon offers $700-million for Wind, holds talks with Mobilicity - The Globe and Mail.
Sic transit gloria mundi. Tuesday is usually worse. - Robert A. Heinlein, Starman Jones
User avatar
AltaRed
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 33398
Joined: 05 Mar 2005 20:04
Location: Ogopogo Land

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by AltaRed »

Yes, woke up to a 'fill' on my Bell limit order......
Imagefiniki, the Canadian financial wiki The go-to place to bolster your financial freedom
schmuck
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 1706
Joined: 21 Sep 2006 20:06
Location: Vancouver area

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by schmuck »

Not sure of any cross ownership between Wind Mobile and Allstream by Accelero Capital Holdings out of Egypt, but Stephen Takacsy said on market call tonight that the purpose of the Verizen bid may only be an attempt to go after Allstream and that the potential market share in Canada is too small for Verizen to pursue.
User avatar
IdOp
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 3873
Joined: 16 Feb 2006 11:27
Location: On the Pacific sea bed, 100 mi off the CA coast.
Contact:

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by IdOp »

If Verizon comes here, I wonder if they would compete very hard. Why should they really? We now have an overpriced oligopoly, and they could just skim some fat profits on a small pie-slice. If they shook things up too much by competing hard, and became a big player, say 15 - 20%, wouldn't they be screwed because ferners can't own more than 10% ? (My 2 milli-cents thought anyway.)
FinEcon
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 1306
Joined: 03 Aug 2005 13:41

Re: BCE (Symbol-BCE)

Post by FinEcon »

IdOp wrote:If Verizon comes here, I wonder if they would compete very hard. Why should they really? We now have an overpriced oligopoly, and they could just skim some fat profits on a small pie-slice. If they shook things up too much by competing hard, and became a big player, say 15 - 20%, wouldn't they be screwed because ferners can't own more than 10% ? (My 2 milli-cents thought anyway.)
In most protected markets, foreigners cannot buy a firm which gives them more than some stated % but in theory, they can start small and grow their share to any number. ISTM, the reason those rules work so well is that for very large fish (i.e. those who would buy market share through acquisition in a foreign jurisdiction) are effectively kept out of our market all the while maintaining a technically true but BS in reality stance that the market is open to foreign competition.

In my view, Verizon would kick the living sh*t out of the big 3 Canadian telcos much like WalMart has done to Loblaw over the last 10-15 years. And for the record, WalMart Canada isn't even trying IMO. And yes, Loblaw is still a big player but look at their profitability since Wally changed the game.
Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome

--Charlie Munger
Post Reply