
At the end of September last year, about the time when a 4,000-word comedy essay writer in yesterday’s Sunday press was the country’s PM, I wrote that for any investors who were too scared to invest in most shares, then “you can do a lot worse than 3i Infrastructure (3IN)” HERE. These shares, like a bunch of other FTSE 350 names, are up since then but today I notice that its board “is pleased to announce a proposed placing of ordinary shares in the capital of the Company conducted under the existing non-pre-emptive authorities granted by shareholders at the Company's annual general meeting”. How exciting (not). And what about all those share buybacks that have been happening elsewhere in FTSE 350 names?
All investors get plenty of stuff wrong, but the aim of the game is to get more stuff right. About nine months ago, I wrote about “888 Holdings plc (888), William Hill and mad deal excitement”. The former had a c. 250 pence share price at the time and today it is about a third of that level. Probably a good job that I concluded back then that “...I will generously call it one for the experts…and I am not one…Avoid”.
As I noted earlier in the month, J Sainsbury (SBRY) had an alright Christmas (aided by the purchase of a few seasonal specials by myself). Though, whilst I may be a regular customer, I do not own any shares in the name. But, judging by today’s news, is that a potential takeover mistake?
A year ago I bored you all by observing that Diageo (DGE) is the sort of pension fund holding that even a non-drinker such as myself can get excited about. My first bad day level was a sub thirty-five quid share price and we hit that a month or two later. And I note this morning, after the publication of its H1 numbers, that we have hit that level again.