Fundamentalist, thanks for your post. Re your comment on shrinking margins. I consider that in the ultra competative world of telecoms to have only slightly reduced margins is a positive achievement in itself and I am sure several other telecom outfits would be pleased to have similar results (time will tell)
Good luck with your spreadbet, dont understand those, I only run cash positions and am holding THUS at a small loss at the moment so am patiently holding on.
Overall I feel in the long term we are going to get good returns here but at the moment it seems that we are going to move sideways. Yet as you know nothing is certain in this game so we could get lucky.

Opto

Like you I think the long term will be good but the short term is liekly to be quite volatile. I have a target price of 34p for these by year end.

The spread bet as a long is just like buying the shares (but without the stamp duty)

for example:

Thus share price bid offer is 25p - 25.5p.

IG index quote me a spread for Thus share price in Dec of 24.2 - 25.4p. I decide to buy so go long of 25.4p. Rather than actually buying the shares I take a position for every point the share price moves. Say for example I take a 10 per point and the spread moves to 27.2p - 28.4p (on the share price rising). I can close my bet at 27.2p and my profit is (27.2-25.4)*10 = 18 or I can leave it until December and receive whatever the mid price is. The alternative is to go short where I would bet that it would go down from 24.2p. In this eg I would be losing as I could close at 28.4p so I would be 42 down. As you can see IG make there money on the difference from the buy sell spread. Hope this makes sense.

Fundamentalist, thanks for your insight to spread betting. Your year end target is not wildly optimistic, 34p is not too far away now. Wait for the next new contract news to give support, and of course there is always the possiblity of takeover talk, which however spurious will give rise to a price increase to your target. My target is openended but certainly higher than 34p. Could be wrong, have been before!!
lol
opto

THUS was notified yesterday that Deutche Bank now held 41.9 m shares 3.11% of the company's o shares.
Not a potential bidder but good to see another major institution taking an interest in THUS

Smith Barney starts Thus Group with 'buy' rating; price target of 34p May 10 2004 10:20

http://mwprices.ft.com/custom/ft-com/quotechartnews.asp?osymb=&ocountrycode=&pageNum=&company=NEW&industry=&region=&extelID=∈=&ftep=&sedol=&FTSite=FTCOM&symb=thus&countrycode=&t=e&s2=&q=thus

Deutsche Bank have just sold their stake - what's all that about ???

blanchard1
The news release states that the Deutsche Bank no longer have a notifiable interest in THUS shares not that they have sold their entire holding.
Have just arrived home and have not had time to look around if I see any further details I will post later.
Regds
optomistic

THUS confirms today the signing of the Mil42 contract with Glasgow City Council

Taken from The Herald today
http://www.theherald.co.uk/business/19340.html

pjbenne,
Why not copy and paste the article then it can be read by all easily?

Regards
opto

optomistic
Are there any issues regarding copyright when doing this ?
I did email moneyam about this some time ago but got no reply

Rampage, have seen it done many times, and have copied/pasted articles myself with no problems. As regarding the copyright laws I can't help you there

optomistic
thank you

Guardian link

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1256402,00.html


Lower down the market, Thus Group, the alternative telecoms company, eased 0.5p to 22.75p despite word that tomorrow's annual meeting statement will be nothing like as gloomy as the recent trading update from rival Colt Telecom, off 2p at 44.75p.

cheers all

Similar message in the Times. Hopefully tomorrow's statement is upbeat. Then we can start climbing back to 30p.

.

Why the huge slump this morning on the back of a statement that THUS are forecasted to meet analyst's estimates??? I can't understand why these shares keep falling without any bad news - can't just be following the general market??

Anything I've missed??

"Are THUS shares about to double?" Not going by this mornings performance so far :o(

blanny,
Market must have been expecting more and lets face it telecoms are not the favorite sector at the moment, nor have been for some while. Things never stay the same though so lets look forward to some favorable changes.
In the meantime lots of buys going through this AM, could be some money to be made here for the brave.

50 % more trades than VOD this AM!!!