Good morning!

Graham is also writing today, his report is gradually taking shape here

I'm aiming to report today on;

  • AO World - only modest growth, and cautious outlook. Not good enough, I'm bearish.
  • JD Sports - a barn-storming trading update!
  • Debenhams - perhaps better than expected Xmas performance? (sorry, I ran out of time, so didn't cover this one in the end)
  • Moss Bros - in line trading update. Looks pricey to me.
  • Mothercare - in line trading update. Potential turnaround?
  • Robinson - mild profit warning, but upbeat outlook. Property angle too.

You might have noticed that I've strayed into several mid & large cap stocks in the list above. I always agonise over what to report on at this time of year. The retail sector is my sector specialism, due to having been an FD for 8 years for a ladieswear chain. So naturally I'm drawn to RNSs from retailers.

However, you can get reporting & analysis on larger caps from numerous other sources. So there's little value added from me just replicating here what others report on. Hence I'll just cover retailers which particularly interest me, for whatever reason.

Other retailers which also reported today, include: Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Asos (excellent international growth), ABF (Primark), and Dunelm. I'm not going to report on them here.


Graham intends reporting today on;

  • STM - in line update, and optimistic outlook.
  • Stadium - broadly in line.
  • Gym Group - self-funding roll-out of low cost gyms.
  • Premier Oil - trading update. Oil? Oil!! {{shudders}}
  • SuperGroup - interim results.


So let's hope we can successfully get through all of that lot.


IG small caps wrap

I have a quarterly chat on video with Jeremy Naylor at IG, about my favourite small caps.

We recorded the latest edition yesterday afternoon, the link is here - it's about 15 minutes long.

Regulars here will recognise all the stocks as my favourites. As always, they're not buy or sell recommendations - that's for you to decide! They're just my favourite current stock ideas, some of which will work, and some won't.



Growth vs Value?

Generally, most Christmas trading updates for retailers are coming through fairly well. So it looks as if the first one to report, Next (LON:NXT) probably had more company-specific issues for its lacklustre performance. Mind you, Next's figures weren't actually that bad at all. Everyone's talking about it as if it had a disastrous Xmas, but…

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