Morrisons sales growth slows over Christmas January 9, 2012 Wm Morrison Supermarkets reported a slowdown in sales growth over Christmas and predicted cash-strapped shoppers would remain reluctant to spend this year, despite an easing of inflationary pressures. Britain’s fourth-biggest grocer behind J Sainsbury, Wal-Mart’s Asda and industry leader Tesco) said sales at stores open over a year rose 0.7 per cent, excluding fuel and [...]
Tesco set to unveil bleak Christmas January 8, 2012 TESCO is set to deliver its worst Christmas trading performance for decades this week after the supermarket’s £500m price cutting campaign failed to gather pace in the fierce battle for supermarket sales. Deutsche Bank, a house broker to Tesco, is forecasting a two per cent decline in like-for-like sales from UK stores in the six [...]
Don’t be unnerved by this retailer’s blip January 8, 2012 IN A WORLD of fierce supermarket price wars, and in the words of a well-known supermarket chain, every little helps. And every percentage point change in sales growth or underperformance can send alarm bells through the industry. Tesco’s own house broker signalling a two per cent decline in UK sales has surely raised some fears [...]
THE TIPSTER January 8, 2012 PLAYING ball on Tuesday will be Goals Soccer Centre – letting their fans have a peek at their post close trading update for the year. After seeing a sharp decline when the outdoor football centre reported a softer than expected trading period last time, can they move up the league with a better than expected [...]
FTSE steady as investors eye US jobs data January 6, 2012 The FTSE 100 was steady in early trading with media and telecoms gains offsetting weak financial services and retail sectors. Investors were focusing on US jobs data out later while the Eurozone debt crisis continued to dampen sentiment. Analysts’ fears that Eurozone countries and banks could struggle to tap markets for capital this year continue [...]
Margaret Thatcher’s legacy is that no-one tries to scrap what the Iron Lady achieved January 5, 2012 THIS isn’t a review of The Iron Lady, starring Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher and on general release in cinemas this week [For this, see p. 18]. I’m sure it’s a fine film and I’ll see it once I can scrape together the money from my dwindling pension for a pair of tickets and some [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS January 4, 2012 National Savings & Investments The commercial secretary to the Treasury, Lord Sassoon, has appointed James Furse (pictured) as non-executive director on the board of National Savings & Investments. Furse joined the NS&I board on 1 January and replaces Sir John de Trafford MBE, who became NS&I’s chairman on the same date. Furse joins NS&I after [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS December 21, 2011 CARNIVAL Deutsche Bank rates the cruise company as a “buy” with a target price of 2,650p after fourth quarter results that showed earnings per share (EPS) in line with the broker’s expectations of 28 cents. Deutsche points out that while it expected no extra stock to have been purchased following a significant buyback in the [...]
Ten of the top givers in the City December 21, 2011 AS we now know from the tremendous response to this newspaper’s first ever Christmas charity appeal, the City is full of givers. Despite the tougher times many of our readers have experienced, as a group this year they dug in to support a charity that helps people help themselves. This page is a tribute to [...]
Value is key for the grocers December 20, 2011 LAST week I looked at how the major UK banks performed on YouGov’s BrandIndex in 2011, and this week I’m turning my attention to how the supermarkets fared over the same year. An interesting starting point is to take the Index Score (which is a composite of six key attribute measures). We see that all [...]