Wednesday 22 April 2015 2:55 am

Tesco: The decline and fall of the supermarket giant and its share price in one chart

The business world is reacting to the news that Tesco has racked up a £6.38bn loss – one of the biggest losses ever made by a UK company.

The beleaguered supermarket’s pre-tax losses for the year are even higher than the £5bn markets had been expecting.

There was also a big hit from the writedown of its property portfolio.

Here, in one interactive chart, is the path leading to these car-crash results. Hover over any of the bubbles on the visualisation to reveal information about that particular twist or turn in Tesco’s fortunes.

Mousewheel in/out on graph to zoom, Click and drag left-right to pan

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To make it easier for mobile users, we've broken the chart up into two time periods.

July - December 2014

January 2015 - April 2015

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d3.selection.prototype.moveToFront = function() { return this.each(function(){ this.parentNode.appendChild(this); }); };

d3.selection.prototype.moveToBack = function() { return this.each(function() { var firstChild = this.parentNode.firstChild; if (firstChild) { this.parentNode.insertBefore(this, firstChild); } }); };

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');

var svg = d3.select('#tescoChart') .append("svg:svg") .attr('width', width + margin.left + margin.right) .attr('height', height + margin.top + margin.bottom) .append("svg:g") .attr("class","tescoChart") .attr("transform", "translate(" + margin.left + ",15)") .call(zoom);

var axes = svg.append("svg:g") .attr("class","axesGroup");

axes.append("svg:g") .attr("class", "x axis") .attr("transform", "translate(0, " + height + ")") .call(xAxis);

axes.append("g") .attr("class", "y axis") .call(yAxis);

axes.append("g") .attr("class", "x grid") .attr("transform", "translate(0," + height + ")") .call(make_x_axis() .tickSize(-height, 0, 0) .tickFormat(""));

axes.append("g") .attr("class", "y grid") .call(make_y_axis() .tickSize(-width, 0, 0) .tickFormat(""));

var ftseGraph = svg.append("g") .attr("class","ftseGraph");

var focus = ftseGraph.append("circle") .attr("r", 10.5) .attr("class", "focus") .style("display", "none");

ftseGraph.append("rect") .attr("class", "overlay") .attr("width", width) .attr("height", height) .style("fill", "none") .style("pointer-events", "all") .on("mouseover", function() { focus.style("display", null); }) .on("mouseout", function() { focus.style("display", "none"); if (lastRecord.change > 0) { theColor = "green"; } else if (lastRecord.change < 0) { theColor = "red"; } else { theColor = "black"; } sharePrice.html( '

' + lastRecord.date + ': ' + lastRecord.close + 'p (' + lastRecord.change + '%)

'); }) .on("mousemove", mousemove);

var clip = ftseGraph.append("svg:clipPath") .attr("id", "clip") .append("svg:rect") .attr("x", 0) .attr("y", 0) .attr("width", width) .attr("height", height);

var chartBody = ftseGraph.append("g") .attr("clip-path", "url(#clip)");

chartBody.append("svg:path") .datum(ftseDataResampled) .attr("class", "line") .attr("d", line);

var majors = svg.selectAll("circle.major"); majors.moveToFront();

function mouseGone() { focus.moveToBack(); toolTip.transition() .duration(500) .style("opacity", 1); toolTip.transition() .duration(200) .style("opacity", 0) }

function mousemove() { focus.style("display", null); var x0 = x.invert(d3.mouse(this)[0]), i = bisectDate(ftseDataResampled, x0, 1); d0 = ftseDataResampled[i - 1]; d1 = ftseDataResampled[i]; if (typeof d1 !="undefined") { d = x0 - parseDate(d0.date) > parseDate(d1.date) - x0 ? d1 : d0; update(d); } }

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' + special + ' ' + d.close + 'p (' + d.change + '%)' + '
' + d.text + '

'); if (width > 568) { xco = d3.mouse(this)[0]; if (xco > (width/2)) { toolTip.style("left", (d3.event.pageX - 230) + "px") .style("top", (d3.event.pageY + 10) + "px"); } else { toolTip.style("left", (d3.event.pageX + 10) + "px") .style("top", (d3.event.pageY + 10) + "px"); }; } else { toolTip.style("left", "20%") .style("bottom", "100px"); } focus.style("display", null); focus.moveToFront(); focus.attr("transform", "translate(" + x(parseDate(d.date)) + "," + y(d.close) + ")") if (typeof d.size!= "undefined") { focus.attr("r", 6.5 + (d.size*pixelRatio)); } else { focus.attr("r", 10.5); } sharePrice.html( '

' + d.date + ': ' + d.close + 'p (' + d.change + '%)

'); }

There have been some big twists, too. Here are the top six from this year:

8 January

Tesco reveals turnaround plans including closure of 43 stores and names Matt Davies as new UK boss. In addition to the 43 stores being closed, 49 planned "very large stores" will not now be opened.

26 January

Tesco sells off Blinkbox Music to Australian firm Guvera for an undisclosed sum, but thought to be significantly less than the £10m the supermarket paid to acquire the service. Tesco bought digital service WE7 in 2012, rolling it into its digital entertainment arm, Blinkbox, and rebranding it under the new Blinkbox Music name.

10 February

Tesco enters growth for the first time in a year after it recorded sales growth of 0.3 per cent to £7.9bn for the 12 weeks to 1 February, according to Kantar Worldpanel.

16 February

Tesco announces it will cut up to 10,000 jobs as part of a radical overhaul by chief executive Dave Lewis aimed at halting a slide in profits.

Tesco employs around 314,000 staff. Around 6,000 of those at risk are threatened by the store closures.

17 February

Tesco appoints John Allan chairman. Allan began his career in marketing with Lever Brothers and Bristol-Myers, entering the food retail sector for the first time in 1977 when he joined Fine Fare where he was head of marketing, buying and retail operations.

In 2009 Allan joined Dixons Retail. Allan said it ?would be fun? to return to retail after a previous decade of experience. He was chairman of Dixons Retail until last year when the electronics retailer merged with the Carphone Warehouse group to form Dixons Carphone.

24 March

Investors prepare new legal claim over profits misstatement. The shareholders have hired a litigation specialist to seek compensation following a fall in the company's share price, after management revealed the £250m black hole in its profits.