Member Info for 1pencil

Online holiday spending rises nearly 9%

The biggest year-over-year spending growth came from groceries, which jumped nearly 13% to $21.5 billion, and cosmetics, which shot up by 12.2% to $7.7 billion, the data said.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/07/online-holiday-spending-rises-with-discounts-ai-chatbots-adobe-says.html

I think the new logo looks good on sports clothing, symmetrical which is important to the eye but also class with a hint of Rolex.

Gym clothes for men: From Myprotein joggers to outdoor training

https://www.cityam.com/gym-clothes-for-men-from-myprotein-joggers-to-outdoor-training/

Gym clothes for women: From Myprotein joggers to outdoor training

https://www.cityam.com/gym-clothes-for-women-from-myprotein-joggers-to-outdoor-training/

In other news; pound taken a wobble against dollar and yen

Can you expand on that Auson, not sure I follow ?

Trackers are likely selling for reasons other than company specific performance, market cap being one which is now under £200m.

Interested in why value funds such as Gabelli , Third Ave and Patient Capital have initiated or increased positions, these three funds share a common approach based on Warren B, Ben Graham principals.

If it was easy everyone would do it..

Its hard to say without going through fund fact sheets for non-US entities, bot Patient Capital remain the same also couple of Bright spots with DFA Group initiating new positions or increasing existing.

Given the daily volumes for S4 it does feel like capitulation has taken place, won't take much to move the needle now imo.

Was that not one of the things dropped from the new listing rules, cannot remember exactly but it was a restriction on original Premium listing requirements.

We have the coming together of two unfortunate events, unpopularity of UK markets for investment coupled to prolonged selling from the likes of Vanguard.

With the exception of the odd month, Vanguard were a constant sellers throughout 2024 up until end of Sept.

Some of this was absorbed by more steady hands, would need to check back but Patient Capital and Third Avenue spring to mind with a buy and hold strategy.

mingles, S4 is currently in the transition category outside of traditional index, see THG's recent announcement on what's entailed.

Had a look around to see if there had been any selling, pleased to see nothing really - some months back one of the HK holders sold 1% but that was during summer.

Here is a list of US notifications of stock movements, there's a couple of sales but very small, click on the square with arrow to see trades although its fairly static.

https://fintel.io/so/us/hcm

Given this information happy to wait it out, incidentally the cost to borrow is over 8% per day, glad I'm not paying that to hod shares..

That was always a problem, sourcing and manufacturing locally will take some of the heat out of FX translation as you are only returning net capital (profit)

Good spot ..

We now have confirmation Vanguard have fully exited S4.

2024-12-27 NP VT - Vanguard Total World Stock Index Fund ETF Shares 0 -100.00 0 -100.00

2024-12-27 NP VEURX - Vanguard European Stock Index Fund Investor Shares 0 -100.00 0 -100.00

2024-12-27 NP VGTSX - Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund Investor Shares 0 -100.00 0 -100.00

2024-12-27 NP VFSNX - Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US Small-Cap Index Fund Institutional Shares 0 -100.00

2024-11-26 NP VTMGX - Vanguard Developed Markets Index Fund Admiral Shares 0 -100.00

https://fintel.io/so/gb/sfor

This was contrary to Bloomberg data at the time which showed much small decreases.

Pleased to see this lot out of the way as in my mind represents a sort of slow capitulation allowing for the stock to recover.

Only mention BURB as its an interesting stock to study in terms of sentiment turning, nothing else.

When the results came out in Nov every man and his goldfish went short, huge amount of negativity from the media and these boards.

Well here we are in January, no more news since but the share price has risen just as rapidly back to almost £10 getting on for doubling, ouch for Caxton BURB market cap £3.5b

Talking of doubling has anyone been keeping a mince pie on REVB (ingenuity customer), what a result they had with Chrysalis claim.

Yep, it was a passing comment on Kelso as no real interest other than the connection to THG.

Investors need to be cognisant of the associated costs involved in various types of trading, especially short selling which is very expensive.

This where hedge funds come unstuck as no one takes the time to work out fundamentals, talking of which have a look at Caxton Europe dropped a huge sum shorting BURB at the lows, only mention this as it is a huge lump given BURB's market cap.

https://shorttracker.co.uk/manager/caxton-europe-llp/

'Next said that UK online sales growth of 6.1% came at the expense of its stores, where sales fell 2.1%. It also highlighted an unexpected acceleration in overseas online sales growth to 31.4%.'

Kelso paid over £750k just to fund CFD positions, add to this listing fees.

'CFD funding 752,937'

Pretty sure Sofina will be in Ingenuity in some measure, you only have to look back at THG's fund raising history to see Sofina name popping up, also Blackrock.

I think THG did the separation at the right time, gives two full years before debt refinancing (term B loan) becomes due, hopefully by then things will have improved nudging up the public credit rating to B+

Same with QIA:

'As required under the GTRs, this notification has been prepared using the total voting rights figure of 1,322,058,529 as set out in the public announcement made by THG PLC, dated 02 January 2025.'

The drop is shares was quite significant enough for Sofina and possibly Qube to issue notices in percentage changes, both occurred on 2nd Jan.

https://shorttracker.co.uk/company/GB00BMTV7393/

Earlier post, Sofina have increased:

----------------------------------

As the issued share capital went up at the same time of the raise Sofina may have avoided a TR1, their previous notification is 4th Oct prior to the fund raise and not related.

The tide is going out with a reduction in the share capital triggering TR1 as their percentage is materially higher.

For Sofina and presumably Frasers (and others) to increase their holding in THG Group (remainco) someone had to give up their shares, that person looks to be Matt at least for the moment.

From my limited observations there is nothing to stop Sofina increasing their holding in THG while taking their allotment in Ingenuity too, in fact this would give them a higher figure to elect.

Still very much watching Frasers, key imo ..

Remember those hedge funds from earlier, well...

'Marshall Wace, one of London’s largest hedge funds, saw its earnings tumble by almost two-thirds last year.

The firm’s accounts, filed this week at Companies House, show that its profit came to £192 million ($238 million) in the year ended February 2024, a 64% plunge from the previous year.

Marshall Wace saw its turnover drop to £768 million last year, after reporting more than £1.2 billion a year earlier. The decline was mostly attributed to the firm’s performance fees, which fell 73% last year.'

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertolsen-1/2025/01/03/media-moguls-hedge-fund-suffers-profit-slump/

I've often argued against the notion of hedge funds beating the market, never seems to pan out in my experience..

'Marshall Wace, one of London’s largest hedge funds, saw its earnings tumble by almost two-thirds last year.

The firm’s accounts, filed this week at Companies House, show that its profit came to £192 million ($238 million) in the year ended February 2024, a 64% plunge from the previous year.

Marshall Wace saw its turnover drop to £768 million last year, after reporting more than £1.2 billion a year earlier. The decline was mostly attributed to the firm’s performance fees, which fell 73% last year.'

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertolsen-1/2025/01/03/media-moguls-hedge-fund-suffers-profit-slump/