Ricardo Share Discussion Threads

[pictureframe] 24/6/2004 12:54

Starting to rise, I emailed the company a while back re next results, was told may give a pre close trading update. First time this has moved up for a while

[pictureframe] 16/6/2004 13:11

Been very quite around here lately..but today there seem to be some big buying going on...anyone heard anything? Tempted to get some more of these ?

[salpara111] 02/6/2004 09:16

Article in guardian today suggesting that there will be a further downgrade of profits for the year and that their house broker will be reducing its target as well so I guess that would explain the recent pressure and also suggest that it might not be over yet.
I have been watching since the last great fall but didnt feel that the risk/reward ratio had swung far enough in my favor to take a stake.
I do believe in the company in the longer term as the big automakers are increasingly looking to farm out specific development contracts but you must remember that the market cap is £90 million ish and the company is only expected to make £2.5 million this year which puts it on a pretty punchy p/e ratio if it cannot make a major swing around in a short period of time.

[jelfsie] 01/6/2004 11:07

At the risk of repeating myself, major major support at 180p.

[goliard] 01/6/2004 09:29

Agreed. For a stock that rarely moves that much there has been steady downward pressure. Whaen I sold at 202p I thought it was a mistake as the price went up to 220p shortly afterwards, but this has been a pretty savage drop given the lack of any news. It makes you wonder if somebody knows something, as in general car sales and new models, especially in the premium end, seem to be doing fairly well.

[pictureframe] 01/6/2004 08:38

this seems to be being walked down.

[jelfsie] 27/5/2004 10:00

Trading up date in june or July - no specific date so keep watching the RNS. Minor support at 195p, major major support at 180p. the latter is probably the place to watch for action. Some people seem to be forgetting that however good a business this may have been it still went from an EBIT of £15.8M in the FYE 30/06/03 (H1 2003: EBIT £7M), to a HI loss. That is a massive swing that, even with poor markets, indicates the management completely misjudged the trading situation. I fail to see why anyone should ask the market to believe that the management will judge the turnaround correctly. No amount of... "orders have been up in last 2 months" will convince me to buy. I will wait for some concrete evidence. I remain concerned that the german acquisition was very poorly timed and we have yet to see the end of this particular story. DYOR as usual.

[goliard] 27/5/2004 08:32

Again, down 4% straight away today 188-200p. No trades showing so I presume another T sell in the system. Somebody is unloading a fairly susstantial stake. Anyone know when the next update is?

Goliard (not holding)

[goliard] 26/5/2004 14:29

Another large T trade this morning keeping the price down. Seems strange that the volume on the downside has increased so much, unless its just a pension fund switching out of RDO.

[crystalclear] 25/5/2004 13:44

Just mental gravity pulling it to £2 I think.
The only way the good companies can break away in value compared to the rest is either by good news, or a series of moving with the crowd but faster, and then dropping back with the crowd, but slower. If the motor companies are struggling to meet ACEA by-2008 commitments, who can they turn to for independent help?
Ricardo.
Just a matter of time, in my opinion.

[goliard] 25/5/2004 10:50

Getting hammered a bit today with a large T trade just gone through along with a couple of MM sells. I might even be able to get back in if this continues. Icant help but wonder if the sudden volume is because of something or just a generally negative market?

[pictureframe] 18/5/2004 15:09

some nice buys this afternoon. Expect it to move up shortly if it continues

[pictureframe] 18/5/2004 10:25

Next update in June, not long to wait until we see if recovery continues.

Hope to spend a bit of time looking at their competitors and their sector in general.

[crystalclear] 11/5/2004 13:10

What I read elsewhere is that hedge funds had borrowed cash when US interest rates were low. They stuck this money and spread it around a depressed stock market. US interest rates now seem to be on their way up, and they are unwinding the debt before any interest needs to be paid at a higher level.

So their artificial pumping up of the stock market has to come undone.

Ricardo has come out of that relatively unscathed, still pretty clear of the psychological £2 barrier.

Still looks one way to me - fairly impartial non-holder - I'm just following the automotive sector 'cos I have my money in it elsewhere.

[pictureframe] 11/5/2004 11:52

START OF THE NEXT LEG UP???

[pictureframe] 07/5/2004 08:29

bit disappointed at retrace but still hold , MMS dont wat to dropthe ask though

[pictureframe] 04/5/2004 13:47

Nice 100,000 buy gone though thats a cool £225,000 !!

[crystalclear] 02/5/2004 14:29

I sort of agree.
I see it as a hesitation in direction. The psychological barriers are £2, £2.50, £3, etc
Rather than say £2.20 is support I'd say some people still have "Is it worth £2, Y or N" in their head. That mentality won't be stamped out until it gets closer to £2.50 and then they have to ask themselves "Is it worth £2.50".
But it amounts to the same thing.

We've had a few days of pessimism. Shares in general drop and the slow but steady risers just hesitate for a moment. It seems to me that this hesitation is what has happened to Ricardo. Not a cause for concern in my opinion.

[pictureframe] 30/4/2004 14:57

A few sell off's today, nothing to get concerned about.

I think we may see support at £2.20p which will be the new base level

[tuffbet] 29/4/2004 18:31

The future is really bright for a company like Ricardo as long as the management don't do anything silly .

As Bookham recently pointed out most very large companies and that includes the motor manufacturers have been involved in a desparate battle for market share As a result many companies have made cut backs in- house with more and more work being outsourced - thats right up Ricardos street.

There could easily be a queue of institutions after this stock very soon - remember contrary to popular belief big companies are quite ponderous, slow movers . They usually appear on the shareholders register once a rcovery is already well underway . Once they notice a smaller company's stock atart to appear regularly in the portfolios of their major competitors a sort of self fulfilling buying frenzy starts .

To make the best gains you have to be in before the recovery is evident to everyone so I for one am very happy to be patient

[crystalclear] 29/4/2004 18:18

I'd say a much bigger and more important factor is the results for the big three. I don't really follow them, but I think they have been better than expected.

The companies have been around break even. As I see it, the best thing to do for a company that's around break-even is to put money into cost reduction. For example there are estimates of $1600 for a ZF 6AT and around $900 for a dual clutch transmission. If I was a motor company that made $100m extra in profit, I'd invest it in a transmission design that would cut costs by about $500. Put those transmissions into a million new cars a year and you have an income stream of $500 million per year, in return, not a bad deal.

Okay the figures are probably way off. But you get the idea.

So as I see it, profits from the big three will find its way into companies like Ricardo. Losses will mean they only spend what they can afford.

[pictureframe] 29/4/2004 12:51

USA GDP figures out today, anyone know what effect (if any) it could have on Ricardo ?

Thanks

[pictureframe] 29/4/2004 09:04

There you go a little mark down..lets see if we see Blue again today

[tuffbet] 28/4/2004 17:35

Given the market today another very good day for RCDO- this convinces me we are seeing the start of a revival of institutional interest in the company.

The events at Nortel today actually help because money that would otherwise perhaps have gone to the Telecomms\Technology Sectors will ,for a while until things settle down again, move towards companies like Ricardo which may be technologically advanced but is still perceived as being a rather dull metal basher

I don't know what the free float of stock in RCDO is like but if the MMs start to get some decent institutional orders be prepared to see the price marked down on little volume of selling a sure sign that they need the stock to fulfil their orders.

At this stage in the economic cycle good recovery stories which have not already reacted\over reacted price wise are thin on the ground . Over on Citywire a news item today said RCDO were up on stories that a recovery was now underway so, this could be a boring engineering stock that substantially outperforms the more glamorous tech stocks over the next few months - shake as they like the MMs won't be geting any of my stock - I have been there before.

[crystalclear] 28/4/2004 14:32

I've had a look at the graph and the news, and some of the edges on the graph coincide with the news. The last two bits of news are the fuel saving hybrid done with Ford, and recruitment of somebody from Ford. So there is a possible conclusion that this hybrid transmission project with Ford is going to be developed further.

GM has GM Powertrain, and DaimlerChrysler has Mercedes transmission development facilities. Although Ford seem to have some transmission expertise in the US, I'd imagine its overworked with the amount to be done, half of Ford's transmissions will have switched to 6-speed in a few years.

So if the Ricardo hybrid project is a go-er for Ford, (and we know Ford is putting a lot of work into hybrids, but some of that is with Toyota), that would be good news for Ricardo.