Member Info for Beachbum1978

LONDON, Jan 11 (Reuters) - British consumers shunned
restaurants and hotels last month as the Omicron coronavirus
variant spread and they spent heavily on eating at home ahead of
the Christmas holidays instead, surveys showed on Tuesday.

Payment card provider Barclaycard said stronger supermarket
shopping led a 12.2% rise in consumer spending over its
pre-pandemic level in December 2019.

By contrast, spending at hotels and restaurants dropped, the
latter down by 14.1%.

A separate survey from the British Retail Consortium (BRC)
showed retail sales values were 2.1% higher than a year earlier
with food sales building on an already strong performance in
December 2020.

"More Brits were either isolating or choosing to stay at
home due to the new variant, which hampered face-to-face
retailers as well as hospitality and leisure outlets," said Jose
Carvalho, head of consumer products at Barclaycard.

"However, there were some bright spots. Spending on
essential items grew strongly as shoppers filled their trolleys
with food and drink and celebrated the festive period with
family and friends."

The BRC ranked clothes stores as the best performing
category in December. Last week fashion chain Next
raised its full-year profit outlook on the back of a strong
Christmas period.

While retailers fared well in 2021 overall, the BRC warned
that consumer spending was likely to be squeezed by fast-rising
inflation, surging energy bills and tax increases.

The Bank of England thinks consumer price inflation will hit
about 6% in April, its highest in 30 years, and in the same
month workers are due to see their social security contributions
go up.

"It will take continued agility and resilience if
(retailers) are to battle the storm ahead, while also tackling
issues from labour shortages to rising transport and logistics
costs," said Helen Dickinson, BRC chief executive.
(Reporting by Andy Bruce
Editing by William Schomberg)

Hi Banbury, thanks for this and responded over on Saga.
Agree with your points. One thing I thought of though is…..take Next for instance and any other companies reporting very strong sales, but with slightly less footfall. They all have ALOT more competition!! CARD pretty much has the market on the high street/malls etc.
If I’m buying a shirt in Meadowhall for instance, I have the option of Next, TKMaxx, River Island, Moss Bros, BOSS, Jack and Jones, Reiss, French Connection, Paul Costellio, Jack Mills, USC, Tes Baker, Flannels, Tommy Hilfigar, Superdry, Urban Outfitters, Joe Browns, Zara, Hollister. All Saints & M&S.

When I’m buying a CARD, cheap present, or any other celebratory item. Where am I going?

We all know the answer. IMO. GLA.

Hi Banbury, hope you’re well, seen your post on CARD. No worries! Going to be an interesting month!!
Large number of singles for this age demographic product would be high, and always has been.
Reality is it’s all widows, with or left with boat loads of money and have no £ restraints.
Tour Op’s have always had silly high Single supplements, sometimes in the past they are basically paying near the same price for 2 people. So there effectively being penalised for being single.
Not looked into Sagas supplements, but they will appreciate they have to still get extra £ from the singles to make it cost effective and profitable for them.
Trying to increase the extra £ but without penalising too much. They have to be much more sensitive, given the product.
The singles ‘widows’ though appreciate they have this extra cost for being single, and probably don’t care anyway they have so much £.

There’s no way Saga haven’t factored in all of the above. So in my opinion, the amount of singles I feel would have very little impact in terms of margins, profitability extra. They know there audience. They know they need to pay more. As do the widows.

Sad reality….but there you go!

Thanks Rox

But then….with no lockdowns, or going forward. CF having there own manufacturing.
Basket prices +20% to outweigh the footfall.
Busy Xmas period.
Why would they then still increase incrementally there short. That’s what doesn’t make sense.
If the news changes for the worse then yes…but it’s all for the better.
Or maybe there too proud to be shown wrong and want us to start fearing?

Lombard shorting v 200,000 Director buy on 18 November @53p.

I know who I’m backing.

Ginner…once again thank you very much indeed for this feedback, really appreciated.

I/we believe it’s more than replicated across the country, and seen it for myself. And this is why I’m HOLD HOLD HOLD, if fact buying more into the 60’s. My average is 50.40.

I do not understand this short at all. It’s confusing. I am going off what my and our eyes and ears have seen/heard.

Thanks again. Reassuring.

That’s a busy last 2 weeks of Jan! CARD, WRKS, SAGA. All aboard the TU TUrain choo choo!

Best of luck mate. I imagine knowing your character your getting excited :-)

Got the cautious message back below -

He didn’t sound very confident mate tbh...burg like he says it’s what the market thinks that matters. I would tread with caution.

You might be right Rox, the ‘Cup and Handle’ for CARD played out beautifully, if you look at the formation of it from the 9th December, to the bottom of the handle on Monday 20th December, then the big rise.
The exact cup and handle pattern is playing out IMO for WRKS, be it about a week behind. Look from the 10th December to present to see the formation, and the handle is now forming. All IMO but end of this week or even a few days I predict the outbreak. When is there TU Rox?

Dean, even

Interesting- https://www.pgbuzz.net/the-works-ipo-repeats-success-for-dean-hoyle-card-factorys-co-founder/

My friend knows David personally and text him on my behalf about his opinion on CARD shares.

Well Simes, we have seen the shops rammed, queues at the tills around the country, we’ve spoken to the staff directly, even reports on the freight going in and out from the factory. Things have only got much better from the positive September TU due to Xmas
We know card margins have to be around 100% to counteract the wastage which there’ll always be.

This should counteract all your points above.

You could well be correct Lombard are being clever and maybe know something we don’t. But there is no evidence from the outside to suggest otherwise, which is why we are questioning.

It would be good to know your actual research? Our point are backed up, yours are extremely vague.

We will soon find out either way?!

Hope you don’t mind starting a new thread on the Short Position, getting lengthy the previous one.

This is getting interesting this morning!

On a lighter note, working in my hotel restaurant last night, I spent an hour tidying up CF products. I picked up 8 CF bags, left from various birthday celebrations that evening, along with left over balloons, cards, glitter, banners and ribbon etc. It gave me a nice warm feeling haha.

Thanks for this Rox, well explained. Is it therefore feasible if they have what we predict a bumper Xmas to pay off an extremely large chuck in one go? If not all? Or would that not make sense?

I heard a rumour a CF shop nearly caught fire yesterday, the tills were smoking from the sheer volume of transactions.

Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story!

Hi ASR. I can assure you the High Street ones are rammed as well from all our research around the country :-)

Great feedback, thank you Ginner.

On an even simpler note….I just don’t think they realise how much £ is going through those tills and just how busy it is! That’s the beauty of our research. We can see it first hand. Not through a window in Canary Wharf.

All part of the fun and games ey Rox! Plus you have more time on your hands which can be dangerous haha

Good shout Vegas….problem is when this goes, it’s going to GO…and we don’t know the exact timing so probably safer to wait and not get greedy!? IMO.