WPP Results.

[Gengulphus]

yield down 8%,

Unless my maths is wrong, an increase in share price of 8%, on a flat dividend, would result in a yield reduction of about 7.41%.

Be careful with your use of percentages here. The yield you can buy has changed from from 7.3% (last Friday) to 6.8% today - in finance parlance a drop of 50 basis points, rather than a reduction of ~7% which can be misleading.

Be careful about significant figures as well. Merely knowing that the yield rounded to one decimal place has dropped by 0.5 percentage points does not give one anything like enough accuracy to express the yield drop anything like as precisely as "50 basis points" - it could be anything from only just over 40 basis points to only just under 60 basis points (and with some rounding schemes, though not the one usually taught in schools, either or both of those "only just under"s could be omitted). And note that (at least as I understand it) the main reason why the finance parlance "basis points" exists at all is because it enables one to talk succinctly and accurately about small differences in yields (including other types besides dividend yields). Indeed, they're not really very useful at all for HYPers posting about dividend yields, at least during market hours, because of the quite high likelihood that share price fluctuations will render any calculated answer inaccurate before one has even had the opportunity to post it!

A more accurate figure could be calculated from the original price and dividend-per-share figures, but probably the easiest way of dealing with the issue is to say "about 50 basis points", or "about 0.5 percentage points" if one wants to avoid unnecessary use of finance parlance.

Gengulphus

[YeeWo]

What was the phrase someone else used Facebook food?

That “someone” was Me and the phrase was “FANGfood”. Better homes for my hard-earned than WPP for the foreseeable........

[moorfield]

Unless my maths is wrong, an increase in share price of 8%, on a flat dividend, would result in a yield reduction of about 7.41%.

Be careful with your use of percentages here. The yield you can buy has changed from from 7.3% (last Friday) to 6.8% today - in finance parlance a drop of 50 basis points, rather than a reduction of ~7% which can be misleading.

Be careful about significant figures as well. Merely knowing that the yield rounded to one decimal place has dropped by 0.5 percentage points does not give one anything like enough accuracy to express the yield drop anything like as precisely as "50 basis points" - it could be anything from only just over 40 basis points to only just under 60 basis points (and with some rounding schemes, though not the one usually taught in schools, either or both of those "only just under"s could be omitted). And note that (at least as I understand it) the main reason why the finance parlance "basis points" exists at all is because it enables one to talk succinctly and accurately about small differences in yields (including other types besides dividend yields). Indeed, they're not really very useful at all for HYPers posting about dividend yields, at least during market hours, because of the quite high likelihood that share price fluctuations will render any calculated answer inaccurate before one has even had the opportunity to post it!

A more accurate figure could be calculated from the original price and dividend-per-share figures, but probably the easiest way of dealing with the issue is to say "about 50 basis points", or "about 0.5 percentage points" if one wants to avoid unnecessary use of finance parlance.

Gengulphus

1 decimal place has always been good enough for me. I'm happy to be vaguely right when it comes to yields, rather than precisely wrong.

[Gengulphus]

1 decimal place has always been good enough for me. I'm happy to be vaguely right when it comes to yields, rather than precisely wrong.

Same for me. But as I'm sure you realised, my point was that basis points implicitly claim more decimal places of precision, and indeed that's what makes percentage points a more useful unit for HYPers. And they're more generally understood as well!

Gengulphus