Marks And Spencer Share Discussion Threads

[alphahunter] 12/6/2011 11:35

Isis,

Good article that one.
Thanks.

Alphahunter.

[isis] 11/6/2011 14:06

Grocers make a regal profit thanks to Royal Wedding and warm weather
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 10:05 PM on 10th June 2011

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The Royal Wedding and warm weather in April boosted High Street sales including those at Tesco and Sainsbury's as people rushed to buy food for street parties.

Party time:The Royal Wedding and warm weather in April boosted sales
But both supermarkets are expected to report muted sales next week as household budgets were squeezed by the sky-high food and energy bills.
Analysts expect Tesco, the country's biggest retailer, to show a 0.6pc rise in sales at its UK stores when it reports its first quarter trading figures on Tuesday.
This is an improvement on the 0.7pc fall the retailer posted in the previous quarter.
The string of Bank Holidays allowed overall high street sales to rise by a robust 1.1pc in April – the biggest rise since 2002.
But the resurgence appears to have run out steam.
Sainsbury's is expected to report a 1.3pc rise like-for-like sales for the 12 weeks to June 11 on Wednesday.
This compares to growth of 0.2pc in the last quarter.
But analysts at Espirito Santo say they do not expect Sainsbury's trading to be a 'significant outperformance relative to its peers.'


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[gruss] 11/6/2011 13:59

Lets face it shorters are just parasites. No interest in the company but just after the fast buck to be made.

[isis] 10/6/2011 19:33

Alpha - I bought M&S @329.5p and have a 10.8p dividend and am not complaining or blaming shorts.
Shorters like the uncertainty and play havoc - I'm talking about the Hedge Funds unless you believe there is an Army of Private Investors all sitting at home moving the markets.

The main Retailers getting hurt are in the Electricals which is massively over competitive at present. Many of the others have had their own problems too.

[artnouveau] 10/6/2011 19:29

Hi Alpha,

Good call on your short position re MKS, you sensibly offloaded half the position as I remember. I'll be looking to add a few more M&S into my ISA/SIPP in coming weeks.

Halfords looks another well run outfit for the longer-term and good dividend income.

Only short I have open is a small £5 a point on the Dow which I'll probably close on Monday for a couple of grand profit.

ArtN

[alphahunter] 10/6/2011 19:23

Isis,

Are you a stock picker, or just relying on the market (i.e QE3, German Bundestag's vote for the Big Fat Greek Bail-out, Cameron's plan B, the US earnings season...) to increase your pot? Have you actually listenned to MKS's conference call?

And don't think that shorts play havoc on all retail stock. Just look at Majestic Wines, up 10% over the last two weeks. A sun-loving barbecue-friendly (think of Home base yesterday) middle-class stock.

You could have made yourself a nice 15% in that time frame Long MJW - Short MKS, all market neutral, even sector neutral, no need to wait for Godot, I mean for "how Wall Street will open".

Please don't blame shorters.


ArtNouveau,
I'm surprised too by Halfords - which I don't that well - , I have no position but I will listen to the conf call replay.

Alphahunter

[isis] 10/6/2011 17:14

Lloyds has fallen 25% and many others have fallen more than 10% too.

Let's see what US earnings bring, these in between phases tend to give everyone the Jitters and allows the shorts to play havoc.

[artnouveau] 10/6/2011 17:11

If you'd asked me two weeks ago if M&S would fall from £4.10 to £3.58 in matter of weeks I wouldn't have taken it seriously. So, given Next, Halfords and M&S are performing well in the current retail environment I am surprised by the size of their fall in shareprice. Simple as that. ArtN

[isis] 10/6/2011 17:06

Great call? FTSE down 400 points DOW down 600pts! LOL

[artnouveau] 10/6/2011 17:05

Have to say great call on the short side for those trading retail stocks. For me I'm buying in the medium term and looking to re-increase my holding again next week in my ISA. ArtN

[nickward] 10/6/2011 14:25

isis

Call it top slice if you will, it is still a short position, another good short currently in progress from 830 is ENRC now at 767.

[isis] 09/6/2011 21:45

Argos has been affected mainly by the slump in Electricals which most people have, even those on benefits all have the latest gadgets.
M&S said it was exiting Electrical Goods earlier this year - not that it was ever a major player anyhow:-

HOME RETAIL SHARES SLUMP AS SALES SLIDE


Argos owner Home Retail has sparked more worries about the stuttering ­economic recovery

Friday June 10,2011
By Philip Waller
Have your say(0)
ARGOS owner Home Retail sparked more worries about the stuttering ­economic recovery yesterday by unveiling a sales slump and saying confidence was returning to credit-crunch levels.
Home Retail, which also owns the Homebase chain, said belt-tightening shoppers were turning their backs on big-ticket items such as digital TVs in addition to audio equipment and video games.
The group blamed a bigger-than-expected fall in the sales of consumer electronics for a 9.6 per cent decline in Argos sales in the 13 weeks to May 28, against forecasts of a 4 to 7 per cent decrease.
In a consumer electronics market down about a fifth, Argos held on to its share by selling more laptops, while sales of smaller items like toys, garden furniture and barbecues also did well.
Chief executive Terry Duddy said it was clear shoppers were tightening their belts amid growing concern about the economic downturn, tax rises and government cutbacks.
"Underlying confidence has dropped off significantly and is getting back to credit-crunch levels," he said.
Belt-tightening shoppers are turning their backs on big-ticket items
Shares in Home Retail fell more than 13 per cent to a two-and-a-half-year low, declining 27¾p to 175p, after it said trading conditions proved more difficult and volatile than anticipated between March and May.
Argos now expects a mid-single-digit decline in like-for-like sales in 2011-12. The company said a store refurbishment programme at Argos was helping to offset the problems, with 150 stores upgraded and a further 200 face-lifts planned this year.
Argos is also hoping for a boost from the roll-out of children's clothing ranges next month and a new Argos TV channel.
Homebase boosted sales by 1.6 per cent and gained market share as the warm Easter weather fuelled demand for seasonal items like garden furniture and plants. Sales of such ­big-ticket items as kitchens suffered but demand for fitted bedroom furniture and ­bathrooms carried on as the company rolled out a new installation service and in-store displays.


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[tigerbell] 09/6/2011 21:37

isis, I to have gone short on M&S, bought in at £3.88 and making a very tidy profit, using igmarkets, swing trading cfd's, but I will just as easy go long if the graph tells me that the next trend is an upward one, trading is trading and emotion is the last thing that I feel about any share, it's just trading imho.

[isis] 09/6/2011 19:41

nickward - but M&S have gone from 200p - 400p

Perhaps you are just trying to Top Slice?

[nickward] 09/6/2011 18:15

Alphahunter
Retailing is my favourite short; any retailer with a whiff of hardship is a good bet. It can get choppy, so you need to be ready to close quickly if the scales tip because there are Longs out there, still buying into dips, who haven't changed their mind set yet. Banks are another favourite, they are all still technically bankrupt in my view, and any other business in their position would have been liquidated long ago. Also banks could also get turned-over for failing to meet their lending targets for small business if Cameron and Osborn have the balls to do it. It will take some balls and I doubt if either of them any have any. However the government are terrified of bad publicity -NHS Privatisation, Selling Forests and Prison Reform have all led to U turns so if the media blows it up a bit who knows. The banks still have few skeletons in their cupboards that they are keeping quiet about and that makes them good for a short when conditions are right. Obviously you need to do your own research which I am sure you do otherwise you wouldn't have gone short on M&S. Best of luck

[isis] 09/6/2011 09:57

M&S were one of the first to do this and it is very useful:-

Tesco boss: internet sales and stores can work together
Clicks and bricks are the way ahead, says new Tesco chief executive Philip Clarke, as he explains vision for world's third-largest retailer

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Zoe Wood
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 8 June 2011 20.18 BST
Article history

Tesco chief executive Philip Clarke says the retailer must become 'multichannel' if it is to stay successful. Photograph: Tesco/PA
The most powerful man in British retail says the industry is entering a new era as the worlds of online and offline sales collide.

In his first official speech as Tesco chief executive on Wednesday, Philip Clarke said new technology was changing the way consumers and companies behaved and announced various initiatives, including offering groceries as part of its "Click & Collect" service for the first time.

"A decade ago most people put the internet in a silo, a discrete part of their business," he said. "Our big opportunity is to become a multichannel retailer, using our stores to support our online offer and vice versa."

For the last decade the vogue has been for home delivery, as the internet turned the traditional bricks and mortar retail model into "bricks and clicks", but Clarke told the British Retail Consortium conference the digital revolution had "turbocharged globalisation" and was "leapfrogging old structures".

"We now live in a multichannel world," he said, adding that three in 10 UK adults now owned a smartphone and 5% a tablet computer. "So when we talk about the future of the high street, we have to see it in this context, not put it in some silo or reserve. That's not how consumers view the world anymore. Their high street, their computer, their smartphone – all these offer different ways of shopping and all are converging."

The migration of retail sales to the internet had been considered bad news for established chains like Tesco, but Clarke said store groups were in the ascendant: "If you can put the two together [internet shopping and stores] you have an advantage, at least for now," he said.

Clarke said that by the end of this year shoppers would be able to collect orders of electricals, clothing and homewares placed through its home-shopping business, Tesco Direct, from 600 stores, double the existing number. After a successful trial he said the service would be expanded to include food shopping, although the retailer, which is due the update the City on first-quarter sales next Tuesday, gave no date for the start of this.

Last month Clarke presented his new vision for the world's third-largest retailer to staff, promising to continue to course set by Sir Terry Leahy, whom he replaced in March. "I see my job is to build on the terrific legacy I have inherited ... that does not mean sweeping changes. Far from it." He has modified Tesco's strategy to include a number of new goals, including the creation of global retail brands, and becoming a multichannel retailer in all 14 of the countries where it trades.

Clarke also promised to nurture its domestic business, which despite ringing up almost one pound in every seven spent on the UK high street has lagged behind rivals such as Sainsbury's and Morrisons in sales growth. Despite is recent underperformance, Tesco remains the dominant force in UK retail, with a market share of more than 30%. It is estimated that 13% of all the MasterCard and Visa credit card transactions in the UK are made on a Tesco credit card.

UK grocery sales had been weaker in May than in the previous month, when trade benefited from the good weather and extra public holiday, said Clarke. He added that shoppers were "very, very hard pressed" by higher petrol prices.

He added that inflation in Tesco stores was much lower than a recent British Retail Consortium survey, which measured it at 4.9%. Shoppers were reducing the impact of higher prices by buying more goods on promotion and switching to cheaper own-brand goods, he said.

The Tesco boss also said he was "anxious" to be involved in the government-backed review of the high street being carried out by TV retail guru Mary Portas, who in a recent interview was critical of the impact of big retailers like Tesco, and made reference to the recent riot that severely damaged a Bristol store: "You don't just want huge chains with no meaning to the community," she said.

Asked if Tesco was too big, Clarke said: "We need to be valued not only by our shareholders, but by the communities we serve." He said the chain played a "vital" role on high streets around the country: "I look forward to engaging in a wider debate about the future of the high street."

[alphahunter] 09/6/2011 08:05

Covering half my short position now.

[isis] 08/6/2011 11:49

I always find Alphaville very bearish and do the opposite of what they say, has worked so far. ;-))

[alphahunter] 08/6/2011 11:47

Hop, back in, Tesco just said May quieter than April but still see slow consumer recovery. Add to that that Ahold struggled to pass on food price increases as per yesterday's conf call, the backwind from rotation into defensive stocks seen in the last two months may tail off for retailers.

Tesco has been strong lately, on the possibility that they could pull the plug in the US? Now I'm really off to Alphaville.

[alphahunter] 08/6/2011 11:29

Isis,



1) estimates, not census
2) +2.7m since "the 2001 Census".

for good measure, I'm pasting the chart for France:



Ah, la belle France, avec sa politique familiale volontariste, sa politique de reduction d'impots en fonction du nombre d'enfants a charge, ses nombreuses creches municipales pour familles modestes, ses conges parentaux etendus, etc, etc,...

Sorry, I can't make it in Polish! I thought there was a net outflow of Poles in the last two years given the dire state of our economy compared to Poland's and the weaker financial arbitrage between the two countries for low-skilled labour according to one of the very good Polish redecorator that did my place 12 months ago.
The GBP/Zloty exchange rate has not improved since: ( I'm sure that Ryanair has a better idea than me though.

I think that the booking and complex multi-tiered tariff system for train tickets is a shamble, I'm not sure that the Poles have got much to do with it.

Well, I'm glad that you are active in the equity market.

Now I'm late for the Alphaville Session. I'm off.

[isis] 08/6/2011 10:47

Alpha - the figures on population are taken from the 2001 Census - we have over 1million Poles alone from then and there is an immigrant Baby boom.
A lot of people never even filled in the Census, everywhere is packed to the Rafters, you can't even got on the Tube Platforms in London and you have to book an appointment just to buy a Train Ticket!

[alphahunter] 08/6/2011 10:45

Isis,

I personally don't rely on rallies here and there, in the Summer or for Santa to manage my positions unless I have very good reason to override a bottom-up view with a top-down call.

As far as the dividend is concerned, come on, the stock is already trading ex-dividend, the shorts have already been charged for it and you'll get it in your bank account soon. But check your facts, just like the "UK has the second largest population in [Western] Europe".

No offence.


Nickward,

Any stocks or sectors you are currently looking at or you are already short?
Cheers

[isis] 08/6/2011 10:09

May have a Summer Rally next month as earnings come out in the US.

There is also 10.8p in Dividends to come, shorts seem to have forgotten. ;-))