ewl hii'll talk to you. you know, it's new year's day, not many...

ewl hi

i'll talk to you. you know, it's new year's day, not many posts and well, folks are probably just enjoying a day without thought for base instincts like money.

you are right about TLS v bank interest now, and TLS is big enough to have that safety aspect like putting it into a bank. i got the feeling most hotcopper folks prefer the flutter on minnow resource stocks so TLS does not really excite.

in hindsight i wished i had put some TLS into my margin loan, as it has not crashed as bad as pretty much all the rest of my holdings there. thing is, as a long term investor i don't like telstra, they will be broken up the same way Ma Bell was in USA and TCNZ is now having done to it across the ditch.

i read i think a year or two back they borrowed like a billion dollars for ten years in order to pay dividend that year, which is fine for the shareholders of that year but not good for those over the next ten years (paying interest on that) and then at the ten year mark (paying back the principal, for a freakin div payment...)

the main reason i won't invest in TLS is bad experience of them as a customer, and i am pretty sure (as a customer) i am not alone, so i consider any amount they might write up as goodwill on balancesheet should more accurately be a negative sum.