Norman Barrington
14 Sep 2017
Points taken However getting an extra 0.07p interim divi in one hand, and whipping 12.55p out from under our feet does seem a little inconsiderate 
Bill1703
14 Sep 2017
Re: Illogical? "And I thought this was a decent Interim report..."NB - yes it is, on a number of levels. Though nothing particularly new - merely a general continuation of recent trends, many of them positive. And no change to forward projections, for the most part - save for a modest upgrade to expected contribution from ancillary areas.I hear the talk of "slowing momentum", but really, that is reading too much into it IMHO... things like LFLs move around from period to period, the underlying trend is still good.No, this is a simple case of travel-and-arrive for me... MRW has held up well for a while, and the valuation remains full, with at least most of the good news already in the price. Not much more to go for, in the short term ... though if it falls much more, it will quickly be back in attractive territory.
john222
14 Sep 2017
Re: Illogical? Like others i thought these results were decent, pleased net debt is down too, i sold at 248 i think so will be buying back today at 229p.
TalygarnTom
14 Sep 2017
Re: Illogical? Slight concerns over slowing momentum. [link]
Norman Barrington
14 Sep 2017
Illogical? And I thought this was a decent Interim report - Morrisons reported group like-for-like (LFL) sales ex-fuel/ex-VAT were up 3% (2016/17: 1.4%) in the first half of 2017 but what do I know!
II Editor
14 Sep 2017
NEW ARTICLE: Markets swing on UK rate decision, Next "Bank of England interest rate decisionRising inflation, an economy ticking along and strong jobs market may have got the interest rate hawks squawking, but it will be months before they get their way.Higher borrowing costs are inevitable, and ..."[link]
Herald
23 Aug 2017
Re: resistance That 2.50 hurdle has been tough. It did close above briefly on Aug 7 (250.2) but above that level it would be the highest close since Jan 2014. The next price mover could be the interim results on the 14th Sep.In Jan 2014 the short position was 4%, currently it is still above 15%. If the shorters finally capitulate and agree this isn't the next Carillion there should be a sustained SP increase with their continual buybacks to square their positions.
Radaking
08 Aug 2017
resistance £2.50 Chart says a lot of resistance at £2.50,really gotta smash through this and then onwards to £2.80ish............
Herald
07 Aug 2017
Re: Asda Bill, thanks.Asda are still cheaper than the other majors on branded goods, albeit now not by that much. So how come they still seem to make so much more money compared to the others. I suppose Walmart buying power means cheaper cost prices.Sainsbury 500 pre tax on 26 billion turnover, again that's not as good as Asda on the crude figures. Do MRW and SBRY have some sort of cash drain that Asda don't have. I guess MRW wholesale will be lower margin and online food sales will contribute to turnover but not to profit. However Asda also has a profit-sapping online division.***One possible answer may come from comments a few years ago by Richard Clarke at Bernstein Research."Richard Clarke, an analyst at Bernstein Research, said the company currently had incentives to book more profits in the UK because of the UK’s lower corporate tax rates compared with the US.""Clarke cautioned that it was not possible to unpick Asda’s reported figures fully because, as a private company in the UK, it did not have to report in as much detail as publicly listed rivals."[link]
Bill1703
07 Aug 2017
Re: Asda Herald - it is probably less surprising that Asda's margins look to be holding up relatively well. There last few years of fierce incursion from the discounter have seen the rest of the "Big 4" sacrifice margin to protect sales volumes... yet for at least most of this period, Asda has quite publicly preferred to do the opposite.So they have seen much bigger declines in volumes and overall market share... so I would imagine, if you compare current revenues to previous years, that is where the results will look so "bad". Time will tell which strategy will have proven the most economically "successful" (if only in relative terms)... possibly too early, even now.
Herald
07 Aug 2017
Re: Asda Could someone assist with an explanation of why Asda profits figures are viewed as so poor.Back in May Games mentions "struggling".Recently we had Asda reporting £791m pre-tax based on turnover of 21.6billion. It was the "worst annual figure" since the Walmart takeover.[link] when you compare it to MRW it doesn't look so bad. So what else should be considered in the comparison. I suppose trend is the big negative for Asda and a positive here.The most recent MRW accounts report a pretax figure of 325m on turnover of 16.3billion. The market could be viewing the 145m of finance costs as something which will eventually be significantly reduced which when removed completely gives a figure of 468m "operating profit".However still the ASDA figure doesn't look as bad as everyone paints. Strictly on a turnover comparison MRW should be recording almost 600m to be parallel with Asda.
II Editor
28 Jul 2017
NEW ARTICLE: How investors can profit from the "Amazon Effect" "Ernest Hemingway once stated "there is no friend as loyal as a book". In considering its unfathomable rise from humble online bookseller to global retail sector dominance, there is clearly no-one as loyal as an NASDAQ:AMZN:Amazon customer.Having ..."[link]
Herald
17 Jul 2017
Re: SHORTS DATA Commentators on the crumbling construction group Carillion have indicated it should have been obvious to private investors that the company was in trouble in view of the massive short position. 25-30% of the company had been sold short. Anyone still invested here will be aware of the parasitical interest of a massive 16.83% short seller position at today's tally. [link] actual short figure may be higher since companies under the 0.5% threshold do not need to declare. The figures can jump around when previously undeclared positions pop up eg the Anchorage and Melvin groups have appeared for the first time in the last month.Food retail is a massively competitive business. But why is MRW being targeted specifically as being so weak that the hedge funds think this company is the one most likely to fail? One hedge fund indicated it had targeted Carillion because of a red flag warning when it saw it was attempting to delay payments to suppliers. "When we see payment terms lengthening it's a red flag and that's why we shorted it." FT article, "Carillion fights for survival after share price crash". In contrast we had MRW making a recent commitment to shorten payment terms to suppliers [link] has all sorts of trouble with its pension position [link] MRW has a surplus. See page 16 of annual report, "The assumptions relating to the pension schemes remain prudent. The net surplus on the balance sheet is £272m, an increase of £86m since last year. In the period, with the Trustees, we completed the triennial funding valuation which shows a funding surplus in each of the three schemes."A company about to crumble will usually have severe cash flow problems but many cite this particular metric as a MRW plus point: "Morrison has one of the strongest balance sheets in the sector, a capital light growth plan, self-help opportunities, is close to net cash and has one of the most attractive cash flow valuations in the sector." [link] So why is MRW still a massive target, or should we just assume the shorters know more and their patience will eventually win through.
Herald
12 Jul 2017
Re: NEW ARTICLE: Trends and Targets for 11/0... Well that was 2 minutes I'll never get back....what a waste of time
II Editor
10 Jul 2017
NEW ARTICLE: Trends and Targets for 11/07/2017 " MORRISONS PLC (LSE:MRW) Chart price manipulation gaps used to be a touchstone for many traders, all representing a level a price shall return - eventually. The exemption caveat was always "the Game Changer" gap, one where something major ..."[link]
