Heading lower again. Very odd |
Following Halfords is like supporting a Div 1 side trying to get back into the Championship |
Shorters trying it on, nothing to worry to much about. |
No news until April, I'm sure there'll be shorters trying to play with the price before then. |
Bought some just a bit above 128 |
Broker downgrade? |
The amount is £9024.42. Halfords name bigger than the amount ;-) |
I would imagine Homebase had some kind of credit account with Halfords for servicing the Homebase vans or lorry tyre replacement?
Marginal amounts, but helped with the article headlines. |
From the ADVFN daily news:
Homebase collapsed into administration owing more than £650 million to unsecured creditors including the retailers AO World, Halfords and the Hut, it has been disclosed. A document filed with Companies House reveals the extent of the DIY and garden retailer’s debts to its creditors when Teneo was appointed as administrator in November. - The Times |
"United Kingdom tyre market is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 4.91% for the forecast period between 2023 and 2030. The market was estimated to be worth USD 5.16 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach USD 7.73 billion by 2030." |
 Sell to Hold:
"Liberum has upgraded Halfords (HFD) after a better-than-expected trading update. However, it is still cautious about the overall outlook.
Analyst Ben Hunt moved his recommendation from ‘sell’ to ‘hold’ and increased the target price from 100p to 144p on the bicycle and car accessories retailer. Halfords jumped 14% to 143p on Tuesday after it reported better-than-expected trading over the peak period, coupled with an improved cost outlook.
These factors led to sizeable consensus forecast upgrades this year, although Hunt only upgraded his forecasts to the ‘lower end of the new guided range’.
‘We expect a flat profit profile going forward given the tough economic backdrop,’ he said.
‘Earnings momentum has clearly turned here and comparatives remain soft, but we are not convinced Halfords is entering into a new upgrade cycle.’"
Sort of sums up the market.
We get the relief bounces when trading is in line or better than expected (when the market is pricing in worse), but then the market wonders if the spikes are sustainable, on the back of the economy we have.
Sometimes the bounces are exacerbated by shorts (GLG cut their short position from 1.28% to 1.06% yesterday) getting caught off guard as well, but we don't see that real follow through conviction to turn these charts around and form bullish trends.
The momentum often gets exhausted. In the grand scheme of things statements like this from HFD are just less garbage than the garbage the market was expecting, so it pops.
A crude way to put it, but that is the ugly environment we are in.
That is our market.
Hip Hip...
All imo
DYOR |
Expecting a few re-ratings here. There's been to much gloom around and HFD to me looks more like a growth stock with a good divi thrown in. |
Re: the NI costs etc. As they have moved towards non-discretionary sales, presumably price-sensitivity is less of an issue - especially with must-have auto work, so a bit added to prices might not be very important.
Still think its not that well run. You only have to visit in the week to see the waste of shop space, whatever other activities are thriving. I don’t know the answer but they don’t seem to be trying anything new.
At least the website isn’t stuck in the previous decade now.
Looks like about 16p earnings for the year, so perhaps a fair price around 150p-160p. |
A good update, deserving a good mark-up - but this leap is surely excessive. Expecting it to trickle down to what? 135p? |
Well said Ham, This is a well run company that has been going through tough times and now showing improvements on most fronts. It's one of my favourite shares to buy cheap and take profits when appropriate.
This has plenty of potential for big gains in the future for sure. |
Market likes it , but is ignoring the potential for a £23m hit from the budget next year... |
some of us had long term faith in this despite being a few percent down til the surprise update today,
as a poster said in the last month we did a "curry" and the price goes up in a hurry
well done hamx3 |
Well that is a lovely bonus :-) profit uplift kept them to the old timetable? Definitely welcome 👌 |
Boom another good announcement |
139p open ... niiiiice |
 Told yer ;) ......
(Should be an up day on that. Well into the 130s, but broader market might hold it back, hope not)
28 January 2025
Halfords Group plc
Upgrade to FY25 profit expectation based on recent trading and continued strategic progress
Recent Trading
Like-for-like (‘LfL’) sales growth was positive in Q3 (H1: flat) in both Retail and Autocentres.
Retail traded well over the peak trading period as our product and promotional proposition resonated well with customers, notably in Cycling, where Christmas gifting contributed to LfL sales growth of 13.1% in December.
Autocentres saw strong performance in the more profitable and strategically important Services, Maintenance and Repair (‘SMR’) market. LfL SMR sales growth in consumer garages reached 10.3% in Q3, supported by our Fusion Motoring Services rollout and offsetting continued weakness in the consumer tyres market.
Current trading has benefitted from the colder weather in more recent weeks with Motoring Product delivering LfL sales growth in January of 5.5%.
Hedged FX rate in cost of goods sold expected to be better than previously anticipated in FY25.
Freight headwind now expected below the previously guided £4m-£7m range.
Costs continue to be well-managed and on-track to exceed the £30m full-year target previously indicated
FY25 Outlook
In the interim results announcement published in November we noted ongoing market volatility through the first half of FY25 and indicated that we expected this to continue through the second half of the year. In recent months we have seen an improvement in trading alongside continued progress on a number of key initiatives, including our pricing and promotion strategies and cost reduction measures. Cumulatively, these factors lead us to expect FY25 underlying profit before tax of £32m to £37m.
FY26 and Beyond
Despite the recent positive performance, there remains considerable uncertainty regarding the outlook for the UK consumer in light of measures introduced by the Autumn Budget, which take effect from April and hence are in force for the entirety of FY26. While the impact of changes to the minimum wage and national insurance contributions are relatively easy to quantify, adding c.£23m to our direct labour costs in FY26 alone as announced in November, their effects on the demand environment and health of the broader economy are harder to predict. We also continue to expect to see inflation passed through on managed services. We continue to work on possible mitigations for the additional costs we face and will share our plans alongside our FY25 results |
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