Gordon Stein, CFO of CleanTech Lithium, explains why CTL acquired the 23 Laguna Verde licenses. Watch the video here.
This and BOO have definitely been the worst performers in my Portfolio, worse even than Alibaba. I'm down 58% on ASC and "only" 52% on BABA. However, I think with something like BABA I think I underestimated the political risk. It's likely it will permanently trade at a discount to fair value. I mean look at what's happened to Russian stocks. They've lost like 99% of their value. What happens to BABA if China invades Taiwan tomorrow?
I don't see similar permanent risks with ASOS. All the problems we're having here are temporary or one-off IMO. No CEO, supply chain issues, losing the Russian market, interest rates increases. Perhaps only inflation might be a bit more persistent but that's anybody's guess and affects the competition as well.
Do I wish I had invested less here and instead put some of the money into BAE Systems which I was looking at? Yes! But at the same time I'm not worried about a total financial loss here (like I am with BABA). Worst case I'll have to wait few years to break even. So it's likely I won't make money and obviously there's the opportunity cost but what's the most important in long term investing is Buffett's rule of investing: "Don't lose money".
So I think with ASOS I won't lose money, sooner or later it will back at £40, simply because it's a good business. I want to invest in businesses and not in ticker symbols. Yes, the stock price is terrible but I'm trying to see it as a random number generator. We have earnings, cashflows, growth. ASOS is a sound business.
Flyer, this is the dry index meaning dry bulk. Dry bulk commodity is a raw material that is shipped in large unpackaged parcels, for example iron ore, coal, etc. This isn't directly relevant to ASOS. We need to look at the container shipping rates. Those are still pretty high:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1250636/global-container-freight-index/
We've heard some rumours about them interviewing a CEO:
https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2022/01/asos-lines-up-former-farfetch-executive-as-new-ceo/
So they're probably just going through the interview process. When I've interviewed people at work usually it takes few months from the point we decide we need someone to the point we actually interview them. Then it could take another month or two or even longer before they can start. Even regular employees have 1 to 3 months notice.
Nick announced his resignation in October and that hadn't been planned in advance so that's probably when they started to look. So it's only been 3-4 months since then. Considering that we had Christmas in-between it's normal that nothing has been announced so far. They're probably ready with their first choice CEO and going through the formalities before they announce it.
I've just managed to move the price with my buy market order. We were trading at 2070ish and after I bought the price went up to 2084. Then there were few more buy orders and now we're at 2090.
Normally I don't share figures on here but in this case it makes sense to let you know - I bought a bit over £10k worth of stock. I find it hard to believe that a 10k order moved the price on a £2b company. It seems that ASC is quite thinly traded atm. I can see how shorters are able to manipulate the price here. On the other hand once things turn and the juicy buy orders from the big boys start coming in (not the meagre £10k of truly yours), this share can really fly.
I think fair value is well north of £40. Probably more like £50 or £60. Once the supply chain issues resolve themselves and fuel price increases disappear from inflation numbers things will look much different. Some inflation due to wage increases is probably here to stay but most of it is temporary IMO. Also higher wages means more money to be spent on clothes. Either way shouldn't hurt ASOS much, as competition is impacted as well.
I think these analysts play with their DCF numbers too much - small temporary decrease in growth and FCF last quarter and suddenly the price target drops like a brick. IMO you need to look at it on a per year basis. What was the growth last 4-5 years? What were the earnings and cashflows? What are they going to be in 3-5 years time NOT next year or next quarter? And then run the numbers and see what you get. I get 60 quid!
I agree. I've added a li'l bit today but I'm already at a full position so I can't buy loads at this stage.
However, I'd like to see management and the company itself do the same! The share price being where it is, surely that's the best investment possible. What is the ROI on Boohoo stock right now? Pretty high I'd suggest, if you believe in the long term future of the business. So I'd like to see massive buybacks from the company, plus insider buys. If we don't see at least one of those that would be a serious concern for me.
BOO has almost £300m cash sitting in the kitty. I'd like to see something like £120m of those earmarked for buybacks, that would be 10% of all stock considering the £1,200m market cap. They gave stock to staff and management, great, buy them back now and some more, please.
I think it was a tough day on the markets. Might catch up tomorrow, it's an excellent update.
Lots of undervalued stocks out there and it's causing some M&A, especially in the US. Microsoft took over Activision Blizzard today with 45% premium. I made 30% in about 2 months. Last week Take-Two Interactive which I also own bought Zynga. No profit there yet, but they got a good deal.
I wonder, if we're going to see something similar in the UK soon. ASOS and Boohoo seem as cheap as chips. It was a big surprise for me today with ATVI but keep in mind that you can wake up one morning and ASOS might be up 40%!
Asos lines up former Farfetch executive as new CEO
https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2022/01/asos-lines-up-former-farfetch-executive-as-new-ceo
Agreed. And don't forget Europe. Sooner or later they can expand there as well. Obviously a lot harder to compete with Neuhaus, Läderach and Jeff de Bruges than American "chocolate" but the quality is there. I have family in Europe and I bought them for Christmas both Hotel Chocolat chocs and Harrods chocs at about the same price - £20. They were a lot more excited about the Hotel Chocolat box! Anecdotal evidence, I know but still. Mind you, since they live abroad they haven't really seen any Hotel Chocolat advertising and don't really know the brand but obviously they know Harrods.
I think next time I'll buy them Charbonnel et Walker to see, if they still prefer Hotel Chocolat haha
Well, if you assume 20% growth it's normal to have a PE double that, isn't it? So a PE of 40-ish seems fair. Definitely not deep value at this stage though. I think the thesis here is that it's a great company and we should just let them do their thing. Any surprise should be to the upside.
I completely agree. I've filtered probably 10 people from this board. There's the occasional good post but it's usually lost in the deluge of personal attacks and pointless posts. Shorters saying the price will drop 50% tomorrow, cheerleaders saying we'll be back to 3 quid before end of next week and then the two groups attacking each other. Does anyone really read this?!
If we would stick to discussing the fundamentals, if you're investor or the share price action, if you're a trader this board might actually service its purpose!
Happy Christmas all (even the trolls)!
As much as I love their products I wasn't impressed by the coffee. I tried all of the types and only one was good, all the others were average at best. Not sure if the coffee itself isn't that great or the capsules don't get pierced properly in my Nespresso machine so the coffee ends up being a bit watery. I saw other people complaining about it as well in the reviews on the Hotel Chocolat website.
Perhaps the capsules work better with their own machine?
I see a lot of talk about what the share price is doing and arnold talking about "the market" as if it's a some kind of all-knowing being. Don't forget what Ben Graham has thought us - Mr. Market unfortunately has bi-polar disorder and sometimes he forgets to take his meds. Right now he's decided to go all depressed on Asos and Boohoo for some no-good short-term reason. Thus, price is low, as it is for many other online stocks.
The other important thing that Ben Graham has thought us is that when you buy a share of Asos you don't own a piece of paper, you own a stake in the business! Well, the business is doing fine. Small impact on earnings due to supply chain issues but otherwise formidable growth over the last 2 years and big investments for the future.
Competition from Shein doesn't seem to be that bad and Asos is still growing and making money. Asos still has a moat vs Shein - quick delivery and the ability to buy larger orders. Shein's advantage is lower prices but to achieve that they ship small orders from Chine to avoid paying VAT. That means slow delivery and small order size, i.e. they can take share in a growing market but that's about it. And if the loophole gets closed Shein is in big trouble.
Going back to the share price - I only care about it at two points in time - when I'm buying and when I'm selling. Right I'm down about 40% here and I couldn't care less. I'm not interested in selling anytime soon and I have almost a full position so I'm not buying much either. I might top up a little bit but that's about it. Other than than I'm just going to sit and wait. 2-3 years from now the share will be much higher and I'll make an excellent profit or at the very least won't lose money in case the business doesn't perform for some reason. For me everything else is noise!
My guess is that what you saw was due to the large spread for HOTC. Quite often I get a much better price than what's quoted because of that. Usually the spread here is 10-12p. I think I've never paid full ask price when buying for example. I either put the quoted price or sometimes even the bid price.
So for example right now the quoted price is 492, Bid price is 486 and Ask price is 498. I'd put the limit order for 490 or even 486. At least half of the time my order won't get filled. But when it does I do get a bargain! So you'll see a UT as 486 even though the quoted price is 492. Now today the spread is "only" 10. But I've seen bigger spreads on here: 12, 14, 16, etc.
So I'm not surprised that you saw 470 when the quoted price is 494. I'd say 480 is normal and 470 is a bargain. And someone just got a bargain. There was a buyer, there was a seller and there was a deal. Perhaps the seller was using a discount broker?
Hi anon,
That's an Uncrossing Trade:
https://www.londonstockexchange.com/help/whats-issuer-profile-overview#ticker
http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/topic/9228-uncrossing-trade/
It basically happens at the end of every day on the LSE (or sometimes at noon). They match outstanding buy and sell orders, that's why it's usually big volume.
Actually that's how I get buy/sell my shares with Hotel Chocolat - I put a limited order with my Broker (Interactive Brokers) and wait till the end of the day. I tend to get a price much better than the market price considering the large spread here.
I think people give shorters way too much credit. I'll quote Mohnish Pabrai here:
"I think shorting is one of the dumbest activities you can engage in".
He said that recently at a lecture at Oxford University. Basically his point was (and I fully agree) that when you short you can win max a double while you can lose literally everything. That's a pretty bad risk reward! And he went on to say that roaringkitty gave people a lesson exactly on this. Some of the GameStop shorters basically lost their billion dollar funds by trying to get a double. Pretty dumb!
Going back to ASOS I think Marshall Wace are picking up pennies in front of a steamroller. The stock is massively undervalued and long term it's probably going only one way - up! It can easily double or tripple from here. On the other hand what's the max downside? 50%? It's definitely not going to 0. So a pretty bad risk reward I'd say. I'd rather be on the other side of that trade and stay long!