Good morning, it's Paul here.

I knew it was going to be a bad day today, at approximately 06:52, when I knocked a tumbler of water all over my iPhone, trying to turn off the alarm. My late grandmother always told me that bad things happen in threes - which always struck me as possibly not the most soothing thing you can say to someone who has just experienced their first bad thing of the day.

Thankfully, I have since accidentally poured cold water into my cafetiere, and spilt a carton of milk all over the kitchen floor. Therefore my quota of 3 bad things is now complete, and today should just get better from here.

Or so I thought, until looking at my share prices. Let's hope that doesn't constitute the start of a second batch of 3.

A profit warning from perennially over-priced Asos seems to have caused some problems this morning. Therefore, despite being a larger cap, I'll check out what Asos is saying, looking for sector read-across. I'll also later look at the update this morning from Boohoo (LON:BOO) .

There seems to be a pattern emerging of (some) clothing retailers saying that November trading was poor - e.g. Sports Direct said that trading was "unbelievably bad" in Nov. Bonmarche Holdings (LON:BON) put out a horrible profit warning recently. As did Superdry (LON:SDRY) .

Therefore it seems likely that others could be following suit with profit warnings. Hence why it's carnage in the whole sector at the moment, re share prices. The market tends to shoot first, and ask questions later. 



ASOS (LON:ASC)

Share price: 2539p (down 39% today, at 11:27)
No. shares: 83.87m
Market cap: £2,129.5m

Trading update (profit warning)

This online fashion retailer announces a slowdown in Q1 (Sep-Nov 2018) sales growth.

Last year (ending 08/2018) Asos achieved +24% revenue growth. This growth rate has slowed to +13% (at constant currency, or +14% as reported) in Q1. Note that;

  • November was particularly difficult (as others have reported) - not helped by unseasonably  mild weather (which does genuinely have an impact, as people don't buy higher value outerwear)
  • Conventional retailers would die for revenue growth of +14%, so this is still…

Unlock the rest of this article with a 14 day trial

Already have an account?
Login here