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In the next few weeks and months we have a number of celebrations and excuses to get back to normal. There’s money out there waiting to be spent on Bonfire Night, Halloween, Christmas and New Year – dressing up, balloons, cards, gifts, diaries, calendars etc. You name them and CARD has it all in their high street shops and/or online. This has been a bad week for CARD and for shares in general but the only way CARD is going is UP. GLA All.
Hiya NOISEY as you know, there are no guarantees in this game so of course I could be completely wrong but I look upon Card as a recovery play so everything I think is based on there being no more lockdowns.
Before Covid this was sat comfortable at £1.80 and more recently 90p before the badly worded refinance RNS.
I’m gambling everything on the results in January being good and from what I have seen on the shop floor they are going to be.
July next year will be the turning point IMHO.
RoxburyHouse, highly commendable! When do you honestly think your be selling a £1 ?
This year or next or even further ahead.
Thank you PassRenti yes just shy of 670 thousand now and all in. Nothing else to sell otherwise I would!
This is a big game and we are the players.
I am not selling a bean until this hits £1 and it will.
Patience is all that is needed here.
The shops are actually really busy.
The first world war was in 1914 if you are after buying a trench. Bit late.
Packing up for today and off to watch the new James Bond film at the weekend.
You only live once, or is it twice. No this one is @No Time to Die
This defo heading for 44-45p I see good support there ,will watch if it gets there may buy my first trench
Paperhands,
I posted that last message in error. No idea how to delete it.
Apologies for taking a while to reply, I haven't had much free time this week. My 3 largest positions at present are CARD, BWY and HAT. Each of them are weighted between 17%-20% of my portfolio. Other value stocks that I'm holding are RCH (this was one of my largest positions until recently, but I recently trimmed quite aggressively as there isn't too much value on offer anymore imo, although Reach has one of the most interesting growth strategies I've seen since I started investing), REDD (recently trimmed for the same reasons I trimmed RCH) and DISCK. In terms of spec plays, I'm holding some DGHI (I personally believe that BTC is worthless, but should BTC's value remain approximately where it is today for another year... well... I'll let you do the maths. Look at the hash rate they should have by next summer, convert that into approx No of Bitcoins mined per month and go from there) and some PRD (I despise gas and oil exploration stocks as much as I dislike the crypto market, but I see PRD as a lottery ticket where the odds are much more favourable than the Euromillions). What about yourself?
Paperhands,
Apologies for taking a while to reply, I haven't had much free time this week. My 3 largest positions at present, by a distance, are CARD, BWY and HAT. I
Hi Stevebt, I agree this price is a gift! I topped up this morning and will add when more funds are available. Good luck :)
I hope it stays at this price for a few weeks as I have a large payment coming in and would like to get some more while at this price.
Can anyone explain why price drops when there are no reported short positions, 650k sells, 1million buys.? MM manipulation? Or is the data complete ****e?
I’m not saying that the situation is easy, but there are a number of feature related to Card Factory business model and to its industry that gives it quite a headroom for achieving a successful turnaround.
Unless you believe that physical retail are doomed, in which case you should be on the chat of Moonpig, I don’t see how you jump so quickly to conclude that Card would be a complete looser... At least, I would give them the chance to present results for a period free from lockdown and possibly with more parties around before jumping to extreme conclusions.
Hi Simes20,
On a like for like basis I think your calculation about cards volume decrease is roughly correct. It’s how from this piece of information you jump to the conclusion that Card Factory is going bust that makes me a little bit skeptical either on your thought process or your good faith...
First of all, we have to remember that we are comparing to a pre-pandemic situation, since HY2021 includes February and March 2020, to the situation in May, June and July 2021 where even if we were open, there might still not be such a huge propensity to party... given the environment, if I was buying 10 cards pre covid and now I buy 8 cards instead, I would not be so scandalised and would not point immediately to “terminal decline” without even giving the company the chance to report in a period totally free of restrictions...
People do less shop trips and spend more - given the fact that cards purchases may be considered a sort of “impulse purchase”, if you do less trips to the shops I would expect you end up buying less cards. If you add to this a little cannibalization from the online channel, reduction in volume are not as worrisome as you are pointing out without giving much weight to the context... management strategy to bet also on the expansion of other products aside from cards makes sense to me especially if you factor in more online sales and less trips to shops. Seasonality is also important: if I’m in the midst of a pandemic I may settle for renouncing to some minor festivities, but absent lockdown I would hardly do the same for Christmas for example...
In general I think people expected to much in terms of results for a period that is still far from normal.
Second, if Card is in a terminal decline as you suggest, who the hell is going to take all its market share in cards? And if Clintons is going bust as well (which could be for real in Clintons case) who the hell is going to sell all those cards? All Moonpig with a price point triple of Card Factory and no physical stores at all?
I think you forget that Covid is not a Card Factory specific issue... we are not in a rampant physical retail environment and Card is doing poorly alone or has some sort of issue with its business model... Competitors are suffering as well and Card can easily be in the position to gain further market share in the medium term, as it always did in the past - it’s a relative game and, as tough as the situation might be for Card Factory, rest assured that competitors are even worse.
Third, it’s tough to see pricing power as a negative for a company, but in some ways you managed to insinuate so... Pricing power is a huge protection here compared to competitors which already sell cards with a very high price point. In an inflationary environment let’s see if Moonpig is able to double the price of its cards from 4£ to 8£ without loosing customers or if it’s easier for Card to do so when it starts from a price point of 99p...
Oops! Ha ha
RoxburyHouse: "20 years ago Card Factory didn’t even exist!"
Card Factory opened its first shop in 1997. Twenty four years ago.
What other companies do you like lorenzo? recovery wise?
LorenzoLynch Hi That's ok. I bought in at 35p or so. Brilliant for you and me. The growth strategy quoted a large increase in
card market share within 3/4 years. With 20% lost already it is ridiculous to think that will happen. I am surprised that investors can be so blind to the obvious. I suppose that's what makes the world go round..
Very boring, Simes. Don't appreciate your silly perspective. You've said enough. Now desist!
The results were just a tiny bit disappointing but hardly unexpected given the impact of closures and footfall during the period. Shops appear very busy. I'm happy this is a good 'un and stuck £70k I today (some if which was buying back yesterday's sales). If this isn't a great candidate for acquisition I don't know what is. Absolutely minimal real value taking account of debt is £1 per share.
Simes20,
I'm a value investor, not a growth investor. If CF recovers to even 60% of pre-Covid earnings, I'll make a pretty penny (in fact, I already have done with CF since May 2020). The growth strategy is simply the icing on the cake for me, but I'm not concerned about that now as I don't think anybody has the ability to predict what's going to happen over the next 5 years. My focus is on recovery. How is the growth strategy 'already proving to be ridiculous'? I must have missed the RNS that said it would only take 3 months for the full benefit of the growth strategy to be reflected in the income statement and balance sheet. Whatever planet you're on, please stay there
You guys should appreciate some blunt analysis. You are wrong about 20 years ago. With L for L 7% down and card mix 10% down, combined with estimated small % retail price increase, you are facing a 20% reduction in card volumes. Seems my name is quite fitting. Ignore at your peril. Every retailer with figures like those end in administration in time.
Honestly mate you are so funny!
20 years ago Card Factory didn’t even exist!
The 20 you have pulled up is from your computer generated? Name! Ha ha
Promise me you will hang around and keep entertaining us!
Hi. 20 years ago Card Factory was a growth story. It is a fact that it is not now, and has been in decline for quite some time. It is not often that a positive spin can be put on a 20% like for like drop in core product volumes. It's all in the results with a little analysis. I am not saying that it will not make a profit over the coming months; it will. However, there is only one way for it to go in the medium term - and it isn't pretty. The growth strategy is already proving to be ridiculous.
Hiya simes20 years ago fluctuations like this really bothered me until I realised that it’s just a game.
There absolutely no reason at all for today’s drop.
It’s all driven by the algorithm to generate £ for the MMs
I’ve found a real winner here with Card Factory and feel so lucky to be in at this price.
RoxburyHouse, I am glad you are enjoying yourself! Having read your comments from yesterday it looks like '24 hours is a long time in CARD'.