Carry On Carillion! (Portfolio Sale)

Source

Ooh Matron! What's going on here?

We humble DIYers can only (figuratively) fumble in the dark on the Stock Market, compared with the 'big boys' who have millions to spend on research and modelling company financial data. By contrast, the most we can hope to do is to watch the price trend and (hopefully) catch any important RNS news bulletins.

But when a company publishes generally poor results and the share price spikes up - it's probably time to say: Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am.

Yes, I know, this probably means that the results are 'not as bad as expected' - but that is not really a great recommendation to hold on, is it? Plus my 'sell' signal for Carillion (LSE:CLLN) has been flashing for a couple of weeks now. And I'm only human: banking a 43% capital gain reduces my monkey brain tension a little. (My 'sell' indicator is 5 and CLLN hit 7.)

It's taken a long time to get this far. I bought CLLN in July 2012, seeing an interesting international operation and expecting the UK Government (and others) to pump money into infrastructure. Well, that didn't happen, resulting in 2013 results that are negative across the board, with the saving grace of (slightly) lower debt, a huge order pipeline (but how profitable, one wonders?) and an increase in dividend ('mutton dressed as lamb' comes to mind).

But the nice thing about high-yield shares (when they behave) is that they pay you 'rent', in the form of dividends, while you wait for them to realise their potential. So I'm not to upset with how things have turned out.

Carillion is still a company to be reckoned with but it needs to do much better. What a Carry On.

[Sale price: £3.87258 (yes, it's very precise!)]


I am not a financial adviser and the information provided does not constitute financial advice. You should always do your own research on top of what you learn here to ensure that it's right for your specific circumstances.