Shares website Advfn (AFN) issues a nice marketing statement, explaining content continues to grow in the areas of mobile, books, and newsletters. No financial details of course, as results normally show how all the hype is achieving no return for shareholders, and no growth in profits (it barely scrapes into the black at the cashflow level). Good, and useful website, but the £30m mkt cap is bonkers. Based purely on the financials, and ignoring the perpetual hype from its RNSs, I cannot see why advfn is valued at more than £5-6m. So it's a 1p share in underlying value, by my calculations. No idea why the market values it at 4.7p.

Hilton Food (LON:HFG)

Hilton Foods, a £205m mkt cap (at 290p a share) meat packing group, announces a solid trading statement for y/e 31 Dec 2012, saying they have traded in line with the Board's expectations, which one always has to assume are also the same as market expectations? But it is an ambiguity when companies talk about the Board's rather than the market's expectations. It looks a sound company, on a PER of 11 (looks about right), and a decent divi yield of 4%.

Dialight (LON:DIA)

Stellar growth is once again reported by LED lighting company Dialight. Earnings for 2012 are in line with expectations, so that means around 40p EPS, putting the shares on a PER of 25 times, at 1012. Racy stuff, but the growth justifies a high rating, if you think it's likely to continue. I don't have a view on that, so cannot value it.

Tesco (LON:TSCO) 

Tesco issues a Xmas trading statement, which is pretty solid - LFL sales up 1.8%in the UK, the best performance for 3 years. Its PER of 10.4 and 4.4% divi yield are in the same ballpark as the other Listed supermarkets, although worth bearing in mind Tesco is carrying a lot of debt on its balance sheet.
I'm not a Tesco fan. Their pricing strategy of constantly raising & lowering their prices is dishonest, and creates a feeling that they are trying to trick you into overpaying, thus alienating customers. You build a business by behaving in a way which leads your customers to trust you, not by playing a…

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