Marston's Share Discussion Threads

[quady] 08/7/2018 09:26

For anyone getting excited by the World Cup and it being a money making machine for Marstons have a look at the 2014 and 2016 July trading updates.

2016:
'As expected, Euro 2016 was broadly neutral for the Group as a whole'

2014:
'The impact of the World Cup was broadly neutral, with higher drinks sales offset by weaker food performance in our pubs, and strong sales growth in the off-trade.'

On the upside the beer business is significantly bigger now so that might tip the balance, but I doubt it'd outweigh the beast from the east, so don't get too excited. Personally also concerned the heat will have killed people's appetites. I was staying in a Marstons hotel in comparatively chilly Peterhead last weekend. Even at 20°C I wasn't fancying a cavery - their main thing. Hopefully I'm wrong.

[cc2014] 06/7/2018 16:42

Have we seen the last of 99.5?

[tiltonboy] 06/7/2018 15:57

MRF,

Equally, I think you are wearing shades when the sun isn't out. Of course there are deprived areas, but equally there are buoyant areas. A house in my village rarely has a For Sale sign up for more than a few days. We can all use statistics to suit our view, and I'm trying to be balanced, hence my comment on your "The only people with money to throw away are the provisioned retired", which you must admit is not the best

I'm not saying that MARS shares are cheap, but would argue that everything has a price. EPS need to grow over the short to medium term, to support an unchanged dividend. Any hiccups, and a cut in the dividend will see the shares de-rate further.

[jeffian] 06/7/2018 14:51

Not at all. I can see my allusion was misunderstood all round!

[jeffian] 06/7/2018 14:39

#653,

....or wearing them on your shoulder.

[123trev] 06/7/2018 14:37

I venture a downward trend is on the cards.

[123trev] 06/7/2018 14:34

The thing is,Jeff,your success depends on how you read the larger economic cues and whether your playing with chips in a casino or eating them at Big Ron’s chippy.

[cc2014] 06/7/2018 14:31

Meanwhile a million trade and some matched 500k's have just gone through and very nervously I venture to suggest we might be about to move up.

[jeffian] 06/7/2018 14:28

I've been out and only just caught up with the rather macroeconomic turn the MARS thread seems to have taken. Rather more chips on display than at their pubs, I would say.

[123trev] 06/7/2018 14:26

Factor in 30 years and in your experience does that 30k salary seem good to the wages and costs we had! Even at 40k that wouldn’t hold water and the fact that skills are so low is a complete lack of investment in proper training and a total lack of true and proper pathways in education both in academic and apprentice levels.When I was at university perhaps one person got a first and a few got a 2.1 now there all getting them,lol,perhaps that might have something to do with treating most universities like a business I.e. based on success!The calibre of graduates today is not that of years ago you only have to look at a few episodes of the apprentice to work that out.

[my retirement fund] 06/7/2018 14:13

Shall we pretend the population hasn't growing almost exponentially a rate of millions over the last few decades then.

[rcturner2] 06/7/2018 14:03

IMHO if anything causes economic problems in the near future it will actually be the lack of skilled people that will constrain growth. My brother in law graduated with a first in Physics from a red brick university and after 2 years he is on 30k and is already being headhunted, he was offered 40k basic to go and work in the city. It is now noticeable in my local area that schools cannot recruit decent teachers into secondary schools. Again, Cambridge which I know well is casting its net wider and wider for staff, people commute ridiculous distances to work in Cambridge, this was unheard of in the past.

[123trev] 06/7/2018 13:58

Well it very much depends on your definition of employment and also real wage growth and the tools used by both governments and multinationals to distort the two.I no people today who earn my salary from Thirty years ago when I could buy far more and my costs were far less and everything hadn’t shrunk by 60%,can’t you remember the size of a real mars bar,RC,lol.

[rcturner2] 06/7/2018 13:56

400k jobs a year are currently being created in the UK

Ask yourself how that is possible in a declining economy?

[rcturner2] 06/7/2018 13:56

Despite the slowest growth in more than five years, the Office for National Statistics said there were 32.34 million people in work in the first quarter of the year, an increase of 197,000 on the previous quarter and up by 396,000 on the first three months of 2017.

The UK’s employment rate rose by 0.4 points to 75.6% in the latest quarter, the highest since modern records began in 1971. A majority of jobs created were full-time posts.

[rcturner2] 06/7/2018 13:55

I am talking about employment figures.

[my retirement fund] 06/7/2018 13:53

Unemployment figures are wrong. I never worked from 2011 until 2018. Not once was I categorised as unemployed. There are millions of people like me. Its nuts to pretend there are more people per population working than ever before. Total and utter bull.

[rcturner2] 06/7/2018 13:46

If anything GDP statistics are clearly underestimating economic activity. There is no way that employment could be at a 40 year high if somehow we were in the middle of a downturn. Of course there are risks going forwards, there always is. There are always plenty of things to worry about, but my basic point is that currently the UK economy is performing very well. This message is at odds with the narrative of various groups that have skin in the game such as remainers and anti-capitalists and hence they are doing all they can to talk down the UK.

[123trev] 06/7/2018 13:42

RC,how accurate are those figures given the huge capital distortions in the markets and they in themselves are lagging indicators.

[123trev] 06/7/2018 13:35

Sorry,caused it.

[123trev] 06/7/2018 13:34

Brexit,trump,China,bubbles,trillions in debts not necessarily in that order and a very shortened list makes for a very keen argument to be out of the market and that’s what’s happening now an unwinding of positions is definitely taking place but this takes time.Im also of a certain age where life has been good but that’s also been about not being stupid and having a respect for money unfortunately my life relies on a lot of people doing the opposite because debt fuels an economy but at some point that position implodes.Due to the demographic of this country and what’s been done in the past a huge debate is growing but debt cased it and that will of course end it,economics dosent exist in a vacume.

[rcturner2] 06/7/2018 13:17

Yet the GDP and employment statistics clearly bear out the story. The PMI figures are over 55, how could this be happening in the teeth of a trade war and Brexit?

[123trev] 06/7/2018 12:04

While I would agree with you on all those points posted above that in itself casts a dark shadow for me because I’ve experienced the same thing a few times and those ingredients have come to spell,TROUBLE AHEAD,Since the last financial crisis I have done very well but that’s on the back of bubbles created everywhere and easy cash for some anyway! But the consequences of this shall be dire because each crisis is always bigger than the last and the next blowout will be biblical and if everybody takes a good hard look that’s obvious.Im not a doom monger as such but a keen economist and I think I no what’s coming.