BT Share Analysis
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Today the FTSE100 is breaking higher to new year highs as most of the companies that make up the index are above their opening price. Leading the pack is BT, with a 3.71% rise at the time of writing.
UK-based BT Group is a leading provider of telecommunications and network services as well as global communications solutions. BT provides voice, mobile, broadband, and TV (including sports) services to consumers, businesses, and public sector clients through fixed and mobile networks in the UK. BT has four customer-facing units: Consumer, Enterprise, Global, and its wholly owned subsidiary Openreach, which provides network access services to over 650 communications provider customers throughout the UK.
This morning via RNS the company released a one-line statement in response to a report over the weekend suggesting it would assert this week that its cost-cutting programme was ahead of schedule.
BT GROUP PLC
UPDATE ON BT’S £1BN COST SAVINGS TARGET
Further to weekend press speculation, BT confirms that it has delivered on its £1bn of gross annualised cost savings 18 months ahead of the March 2023 target.
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BT’s share price has been in a descending trend for several years, though this last 12 months has seen a decent bounce of 40%. Over 5 years the share price is still 63% lower but with the flow of decent news coming out we would hope to see a break higher out of the descending channel from the June 2021 highs.
In the last week or so the share price is up around 1% following on from a previous surge when a report came out that the telecoms group had hired Robey Warshaw to advise against a possible takeover bid by French billionaire Patrick Drahi. The advisory firm was formally appointed by BT to work alongside Goldman Sachs to work on defending the company against the take-over and they are working towards a December deadline, before Altice, the telecoms group controlled by Patrick Drahi, can officially launch a takeover bid for BT following the purchase of a 12% stake in BT in June for £2.2bn.
Shareholders in BT have seen their dividend payments diminish as the revenues have fallen from £24,062.00 million in 2017 down to £21,331.00 million in March 2021. Profits peaked in the last 5 years at £2,159.00 million in 2019 and are down over 30% to £1472.00 million. During the same time BT’s assets have risen but total liabilities have risen. The company’s huge pension deficit is another strain on cash, and the latest financial review details how it will cost hundreds of millions of pounds every year for most of the next decade to implement the new plan. In addition to the debt pile, which resulted in interest payments of £770m last year, the demands on cash are substantial. Today’s announcement will go a long way to settling investors nerves.
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Taking a closer look at the price action over the last week, we can clearly see the bullish hourly candle that tested the resistance level of 144.75 on the 26th of October and then the break of that level in this morning’s price action. Having now testes above that level one of my favourite trade set ups is occurring which is the breakout, re-test, and continuation trade (BRC), which will be confirmed if the price gets back above this morning’s highs.
Looking left along the chart there is also a gap which occurred at the open on the 4th of October, which could be the first target to get filled. As price is in a downtrend, keeping an eye on the progress of the moving averages as they curl higher and become bullish will be key to seeing if the momentum is likely to keep moving prices higher.
At this current level, price is above the daily 20 ema, with the 50 and 200 period ema’s at a previous support level around 156.50. This market structure and dynamic resistance could prove difficult for the share price to get through, but a test of the 200 daily ema would at least be confirmation of the breakout of the descending channel. This could then at least set up for a BRC trade on a daily time frame and likely be a more substantial move.
Daily higher highs and higher lows are going to encourage more buyers, especially if the company provide more insight on how they are reducing costs, so investors can assess how sustainable these measures could be.