Blogs

Latest Blogs

ASOS – when everyone wants out

This morning (5/6/2014) ASOS issued a trading statement before the market opened. It wasn't all bad in that total retail sales at constant currencies rose by 33% in the last quarter - and there are not many businesses that are growing at that rate. However,  EBIT margin guidance was reduced from circa 6.5% to 4.5% for the current financial year due to increased promotional activity and the relatively higher proportion of European sales. US and ROW sales growth was perhaps seen ...

AstraZeneca and Pfizer merger definitely off

Pfizer have conceded defeat in their proposed offer for AstraZeneca (AZN). Ian Read, the Chief Executive of Pfizer, said it was a "missed opportunity" for both the UK and for AZN shareholders. He also said we could have had the worlds largest pharmaceutical company domiciled in the UK which would have been good for science and manufacturing in this country. He surely has a point there. In addition he complained about the Takeover Panel rules as contributing to thwarting the deal, but ...

Carpetright – Lord Harris finally bows out.

Last week (on 21/5/2014), Lord Harris announced that he was leaving the board of Carpetright where he has been Executive Chairman since last October when his succession planning went...

SSE Results – not all they seem at first glance

SSE, the energy company formerly called Scottish & Southern Energy, published their  annual results yesterday (for the year to March 31st).  The first page of the "preliminary announcement" looked positive. It talked about Adjusted Earnings per Share up 4.1%, Adjusted Profit before Tax up 9.6% and the Full Year Dividend increased by 3.0%, among other things. But this writer was immediately suspicious because there was no mention of revenue trends in these "headline" figures - something of importance and usually included. Revenue ...

Internet for Investors Course

Do you make the most of the internet when investing? Are your investments based on the most intelligent research and can you easily monitor them using the internet? Even if you use the internet extensively already, you might be missing out on many useful information resources.Our new training course entitled "The Internet for Investors" aims to improve your skills in this area. It will cover:News and alerting services.SharesSoc’s own websites and member network.Fundamental data & portfolio analysis sites (four sites will ...