Member Info for sammacleod

Local stacked out today....not a seat to be had in the garden.

Still think this way oversold even though recovered 10% from my April Fool's day purchase.

Pub and garden busy, busy again yesterday.

Despite Tim Martin bleating about cost of toilets I think MARS will continue to recover through the Summer.

No idea why this has been pushed down way more than the market. I bought back in again doubling my holding to average down ....again.

I reckon I'll be positive overall in the next up trend when some sanity returns to the market.

Pub was busy in the sun yesterday.

All getting a bit "handbags at dawn" at the moment.

As someone who has always posted my views alongside my buy and sell moments, I find some of the commentary a bit hindsight enhanced.

I took a bath on my core investment which I bought at 108 pre covid. Since then it has been a continuous effort buying dips and selling bounces. Mostly got it right but got burnt once or twice resulting in doubling down.

Trimmed 10k today at a whisker under 40 (from 27.1 in April), leaving me still well over exposed, but I will sort that if SP continues to meander up. Aiming to get back to core holding as I reach b/e. May trim my 27.4s (also April) and my 31s (July 2nd) when we hit 42.

I believe this is undervalued at 40p and expect to make a reasonable return on my core holding once I have repaired the damage from the last 3 years.

As always. DYOR.

I am looking forward to some good news in the forthcoming update. The garden at my local has been packed since lunchtime - glorious weather.

The staff did some great work through the Euros organising match evenings and today's "end of term" bash is rammed.

Onwards and upwards.

Back from hols to find my limit buy orders have largely executed - so back to being nearly double my core holding.

On the bright side having averaged down again since my pre hols sales, at least my carrying price has come in another few pence. MARS is quite frustrating as the valuation seems obtuse.

I hope for a solid trading update and a return to 40p+ and the illusive break even point

At least someone lit a fire under RCH while I was in the sun, so I am not destitute.

Overly pessimistic I suspect, but you never know.

Off on hols to avoid the non stop election drivel.

Limit buy orders set at 32, 31 and 30 just in case to bring carrying average down further.

I have been fortunate to trade my carrying price down over the last few cycles so I do believe this will come good in the long run albeit with b/e for me now a lot lower than last year.

Nice run over last few weeks.

Taken a bit more off the table this week, sold most of my April purchases now and feel better about exposure. Still got double what I think of as my core holding but good to see break even price within hailing distance.

Who is Hugh?

Just off the bottom is relative. For me though it is 15%+ up on my fit of pique purchases from March and April - 27p was just silly.

The sun is out and as I sat in the garden with my Hobgoblin yesterday evening, I felt considerably better about being "horribly overexposed" to a one share. I am usually disciplined about diversification and trimming individual share holdings if they go over 1% of portfolio - with Martsons though, it is visceral - I have long felt the valuation is irrational.

Still a little way to go to break even overall, but may bank a few £k of 2024 profit on Monday.

Chocks away - I think this is rerating.

Preliminary results to Sept 23 quoted a NAV of £1.01

Cue...It's all rubbish, don't believe it, the sky is falling, the debt mountain, etc etc.

For my part. I don't know if it's £1.01 or not, but I am inclined to feel it is considerably more than 27p.

So I am a buyer. Offloaded a bit more SHEL today and bought more MARS.

Started to comment yesterday but got distracted by grandchildren.

A lot of vitriol about recently - not very becoming.

I am an eternal optimist and believe this will turn - to be honest I think the business already has. My local was rammed over Easter and seems busy even mid week. End of year sort out time - took my profit on SHEL and added more MARS (20K more this week). Probably over exposed now......mmmm.

I am ever hopeful - but then I was last year, at 35p.

Ho hum.

Have I missed something...

Anyone got a better understanding of the trades earlier this week?

I suspect that if underperforming pubs had been sold above book value that would have been trumpeted.

My expectation would be that underperforming asset would realise less value than a similar asset that was performing well. Thus I would expect disposals to be at a discount to NAV but that would be accretive to cash and reduce net debt.

Removal of underperforming assets will raise the mean performance of the remaining portfolio.

Obviously logic does not apply but MAB is horribly overvalued relative to its current performance figures while MARS is somewhat undervalued.

They can beat up weak suppliers ...eventually they will go out of business and Vistry will end up going cap in hand to more expensive stronger suppliers.

Strong suppliers will politely give Vistry supply chain a two word answer.

It doesn't matter how many times you say "partnership" if you act transactionally.

Pretty inept email tbh.

I also bought more this afternoon....although I think I am done now as I have about 3 times what I think of as my core holding.

I am at a loss as to the mechanics of this...buy trade volume is double sell trade (not sure how that works) but share price still drifts lower.

Mmmmm

Usual Martin rant.

It is curious though when comparing the relative valuations of Spoons versus Marstons. I get the soothsayer thrice woe bit about the debt position but I think it is overdone. The multiples between the two companies don't compare, revenue to mkt cap, PE etc. I think when this turns it is going to rerate pretty quickly.

Just skim read the Spoons figures. If this is a good indicator of the sectoral trading picture then the only way for this share is up.

Woo woo! And what do the seaweed and crystals say?

Maintaining sales momentum and heading into traditionally strong H2. Reducing debt and CMB delivering cash. All good.

However, not much in the way of banging of drums and ra ra ra we are on the way back.

I suspect this rather muted commentary implies something is going on in the background. May be wishful thinking, but this looks like filling the box by making the required pstatement but saying very little.

I am going to continue adding as I have done already this week.