BP: should anyone hold this stock outside of an investment fund?

i think this article is a bit late as sp recovered over 100p in around a month!

Would have been more useful if posted in April/May.

would have been really useful before the horse had bolted.

If you told any share that turns south for any reason it is all ways a problem so if you are a private investor you either have a good broker who invests in shares rather than funds and gets out when the profit shows or you do it yourself which is an interesting occupation but takes time. Where possible leave funds alone as it means that someone else is taking a large part of the profit before it gets to you

At least with BP i'd know why the share price is what it is and why its there.

I 'invested' many years ago in Kingfisher (circa £7.50). 10 years on and the price languishes. What gives? Are they leaking oil somehow too?

I only hope that the board (and family) of KGF have enjoyed the good and lavished lifestyle that i so much desire.

I followed this closely from April 20th. and got in on July 1.

Now Obama and the polis in the States have realized they are not only Brit bashing but over 24,000 employees in the US then by projection on assets V liablity make BP a buy up 460p. Any company who will put $20 billion into an escrow account has the ability to get back on track and with Bon Dudley now in charge I'm buying again. Forget the advisors, do your own home work and trust yourself you'll win if you use common sense.

Pointless article, as it did not answer the question it posed.

By the way I do hold this stock, and have been trading it frequently, as daily movements can be huge, which has created some profits.

Wait till the true story comes out about Haliburton & Transoaceans part in this. Remeber Piper Alpha in 1986 and Lord Cullen's report, worth a read again.

BP are the easy target at the moment, but who really was on watch at the time and why were gas alarms routinly de-activated, BP didn't certainly agree with such pratices?

I guess like Anonymous 3 above worth a long term investment now.

Dudley was the one thrown out of Russia cause he was afraid he would be locked up. Another yank with no bottle just like Obama. BP won't prosper under his wing, There will be more disaster's yet and ask Exxon when they will be paying out on the Valdiz disaster 20 years or so on. Remember by cheap sell High. This is a good time to by BP

Most private investors don't have the resources to invest in 60 or 80 different stocks and do even a small amount of research into the companies. That's where managed funds score, they do have the resources to research and hold a wide spread of shares. OK, you pay a price for this but you also avoid the disasters. Who would have thought that "blue chips" like BP, RBS or HBOS would ever have suffered the problems they have.

I have to say that the reports and articles on the investment value V risk of being a share holder of BP, moves from buy to sell on a daily basis, so this article is just another one.

Hopefully, BP are now moving forward, with the appointment of of the new 'American' CEO.

While BP at this point is a stock under duress,if its in a properly diversified portfolio of say 15 to 20 strong dividend paying companies,then even with BP's share price turmoil and the cutting of its dividend,it still should'nt have too much negative impact on such a portfolio.Eggs and basket come to mind.

Why not ? The damage has been done the only way now is up Leak sealed , Americans happy a yank in charge , Cost Cutting , Selling assets not borrowing money buy them and come back in a year it is probable without the disaster they could have been £7 today.

I can answer the investor who wonders why Kingfisher is such a lousy company. I am one of their unfortunate customers and my SIPP also held a chunk of shares- now thankfully all sold. Kingfisher- and in particular their B and Q fiasco, couldn't run a bath. They make BP look like organisational geniuses. Anyone who has ever ordered a kitchen from them- big mistake - will know that they are congetically incapable of delivering anything complete and on time. You wait two months, then it turns up - usually on the wrong day - with vital bits missing. Many builders loath the place. As a tradepoint card holder I shopped there tonight, buying some odds and ends including bits of wood. Funny thing, their trade price was TWICE the price regular customers pay. I challenged this and the poor guys on the trade till said that, yes, it is a shambles and they get moaned at all day long. A couple of months ago we wanted them to quote on a kitchen. Twice they cancelled their appointment, the third time they just didn't show up. We bought from Howdens, a firm that knows how to serve customers. Kingfisher? Just a joke.

It's only a loss if you sell the shares. the dividend is likely to be repaid eventually. It's just a waiting game. There are some 18.767 billion shares in issue and it must be a fact that most managed investment funds would have owned BP shares as a "banker" prior to the rig explosion in April. Thus it is safe also to assume that most or many managed funds holding BP have taken a hit on the shares as they may have to pay out income from the fund from a depleted share base. Both fund managers and private investors such as myself can also benefit from buying shares once the price has crashed and obtain a lower average cost per share. It's not rocket science. If all of your eggs are in one basket and it crashes out of existence then you lose. If however you always keep some cash in hand to bag a bargain then you don't. Simples.

Diversifying into a broad range of funds is not the thing to do if there is a significant risk of a market collapse due to recession/ depression. Better to be in cash plus carefully selected shares.

Tracking funds usually beat fund managers, but the same is true if the market falls when the trackers will fall faster!

Declared interest - I sold at just under £6.00 on the up and got back in @ £3.90 and then again @ £3.03 - I have had a massive return as an individual thank you! Buy and Hold is dead for now and I learnt that the hard way with RBS and Lloyds but again have recovered much of my loses by trading both.

Interesting that not mentioned amongst the income funds was Neil Woodfords Invesco funds - One of the very few that had sold BP a while back - Luck more than good judgement in this case but we all need a bit of that now and again - even the Fund Managers!

Declared interest - I sold at just under £6.00 on the up and got back in @ £3.90 and then again @ £3.03 - I have had a massive return as an individual thank you! Buy and Hold is dead for now and I learnt that the hard way with RBS and Lloyds but again have recovered much of my loses by trading both.

Interesting that not mentioned amongst the income funds was Neil Woodfords Invesco funds - One of the very few that had sold BP a while back - Luck more than good judgement in this case but we all need a bit of that now and again - even the Fund Managers!

The comments about B & Q remind of another British High Street joke. PC World, part of the despised Dixons empire, is a master of dirty tricks, from selling goods over recommended selling price to tempting customers to sign on as 'business' cusomers so that they can deprive them of their consumer rights. Best Buy will have a ball with such devious incompetence.