Member Info for simon1367

An interesting development re Camelot adding to its holding. I am tempted to do the same given the almost lowest price this year. The only thing holding me back is Marshall Wace who increased their short position earlier the week as did Citadel who entered the fray the day after.

And four weeks ago Liberum suggested that Asos's last profit warning will not be its last as it has issues with excess stock, potentially in the wrong categories, and too much reliance on discounted promotions eroding margins. Add to that the net debt position of £150m and with significant capital expenditure ahead, Liberum believes free cash flow will be non-existent for a few years.

Obviously the shorters are in here looking for a big quick profit......Are the American hedge fund CamelotCapital in for the long term potential or are they building stakes in Asos and Boohoo for other reasons?

Nevergonnaretire........what makes you think all the bad news is already out? Having endured a year of misery with this share, and the way the directors have behaved, nothing would come as a surprise. I do wonder if the massive amount of stock they acquired was a good idea given the fickle nature of fashion. Let us hope there is no stale stock. The final figures are out next Tuesday. I suspect profits to be at the lower end of expectations. Indeed, I suspect that in the last few months they have been trading near to a loss. Nevertheless I'm convinced that this share is undervalued but I still have fears of a cashcall of some sort which would further devalue the SP. My patience is running out. This is meant to be a growth stock. What a joke.

So the CEO owns just 0.0037% of the stock. That says a lot.

ClaireSmith, whatever it is you are on, can I have some?

Most shareholders are in this stock for its growth prospects. If it scales back on anything that affects that aspect, then shareholders will call it a day in their droves.
I believe the present price has already built in the gloomy next six months at least. On that basis, the price will hopefully rise before the probable future recession ends (I do realise we are not yet in a recession....last quarters figures were a surprise to me).
My main aim now is to recover losses and depart. My main fear is a cash call to the shareholders when the results are announced later this month or during the winter/spring. That would inevitably see the price dip. Crossing fingers that the results are a bit better than expected.
I've just re-checked the short position. Up signicantly. Now 7%.....that does not bode well.

People selling out at around £5.80 is alarming. I can only assume they're on stop loss limits. BooHoo's results do not bode well for Asos's due this month (I bet Kamani is even more tempted to go private now). Maybe some of the impact will already be in the price by the time Asos announce figures. I really hope a cash call isn't on the cards as that, added to the present climate, will see this fall below £5 in my view. Shorts can see this, as they're creeping up again. What a dilemma for shareholders. My gut feeling is that Asos will get through this but will it rise as quickly as it has fallen? I sense not. Am I prepared to wait a couple of years? I'm not sure.

Investroid......the last figures I think show short term assets at £1.53billion and long term assets at £1.36billion. So both exceed short and long term liabilities. The debt to equity ratio at that point was therefore certainly regarded as satisfactory. I assume that the asset side of things include inventory, receivables and cash. However that of course is a picture of the past. I too am concerned at the negatives since then......logistics, inflation, currency movements etc. Earnings in the USA should, I think, benefit when transrerring profits to the UK but it only accounts for about £500m of sales. I think if they are paying in dollars for a lot of stuff it might get tricky, although if they have any sense they would have hedged a lot of their currency dealing.
If Boohoo results are bad (The Times said yesterday Boohoo are reportedly turning the screws on suppliers amid slowing sales and surging costs), then the Asos results will probably show the same signs. Then there might be a cash call.

Treacle24, many thanks for the suggestion; something I will consider. The risk now however could be selling on a significant rise (say 7 or 8% in a day) which, knowing my luck, could turn out to be a re-rating with no further attractive opportunities to buy back in! I know the share is volatile and conversely your suggestion could work , but quite frankly after the year I've had, and the behaviour of some within the company, I have little attraction for this business any more and simply want rid once I've recovered my capital investment. However my guess is that the price will is still going to drop below £6 soon before any massive jumps or re-rating. If that drop occurs I will average down for the final time aiming to average below £10 and then hold until 'hopefully' I get my money back within a year.

Apologies West6809, my mistake, I had no intention of misleading. I think I confused the figure with FEVR. Yes it's still on a reduced 5.23% as you say. As a matter of interest I was looking at the Wall St Journal website and saw that various analysts position on ASOS is currently 6 buy, 15 hold, 4 sell, which isn't that bad. I'm tempted to average down (again!) from my present £17. I've drip fed so far so as not to overdo the capital outlay. I'm obviously still nervous given that there are ten big shorters crucifying BooHoo. Their update is next Wednesday according to HL (although someone said here it is mid-October). Anything worse than expected could push down ASOS.

Re my last message, apologies for the spelling errors. Regards the £6.50 purchaser, I had another think about this. Even though I am sceptical about the comment, I think, on balance, if they are prepared to wait a while it could come good for them. However, personally, I would not have put £130,000 into ASOS at this time unless it was an amount I was prepared to lose. Obviously I'm not!!!

If Boohoo are reporting an update this coming week and the price drops, then ASOS will also fall. They nearly always mirror each other even though I have considered up until recently ASOS being a better run company. The short postions on Boohoo at 9.50% is very worrting and I see as a result the shorts on ASOS has also gone back up again to 6%. I am hoping all the gloom is built into the price but I have said that before and still it gradually reduces. To the person on here who says they bought (I'm very dubious its true) 20,000 at £6.50 , then good luck, you may need a lot of it.

What are these small deals all about? Someone has bought 4 shares at £6.09 ............maybe they're averaging down lol.
Boohoo faring even worse. Does anyone think they're a buy at 39p ?
I know there's a fair drop in the market today but this is getting ridiculous.

JonHarris, at nearly three times ASOS's present capitalisation, not a chance of a £1.6m takeover. What's it like living in fantasyland?

Regards your earlier comment, check out all the UK companies who have failed and ultimately been severely affected by trying to expand into the USA. People forget it is incredibly protectionist country. Look what contributed to BooHoo's recent decline .....USA lawsuits. Any wreckless expansion could actually finish off ASOS at this time, not that I think they will be irresponsible with shareholders funds.......hopefully.

Mike Ashley is up to his old tricks again, offering a cheeky 2p a share for Australian based online fashion firm MySale. This has been rejected by the board. Capitalised at about £20m, Ashley owns 29%, Philip Green 15% (via his wife's company), and even one of the Kamanis crops up with a 5% stake. Green and Ashley fell out with each other some time back. As a result, an associate of Green has recently said ''Ashley doesn’t know what he’s doing. He wakes up and picks a letter out of the alphabet and that’s the game plan for that day.'’ !!! Let us just hope he picks the letter 'A' and offers a lot more than 2p.

Treacle.....I'll be very optimistic and settle for £10 less than you think it will be by Xmas!

.......following my last post, I would add that I definitely do not like the way Marble Bar increased their short position by 0.43% on Thursday. That's a big bet. What do they know that we don't or is it just a hunch they have?

TheSurvivor, sorry to hear you are well down on valuation this year; most of us are in the same boat. Next is a remarkably well run company and is a couple of leagues above the likes of ASOS and BooHoo. The SP has dropped by about 27% in the last 12 months compared to about 80% for BH & ASC. Their capitalisation even now is about a dozen times the size of ASC. And of course NEXT still have an expensive high street presence and still perform better.

I concur with your comment re their clothes sizes. Go into any NEXT shop and the biggest waistline is about 36'' and the same goes for shirts etc. Perhaps there's more choice on their online service. Clearly they are doing something right but are doing better than most retailers in this sector.

I am crossing my fingers that much of the expected doom and gloom results in October is built into the present ASOS price, but with Shorters still well and truly gripped onto this share I am hesitant to average down at even this present price on the basis there's more downside to come. I've been stung once before on averaging down where I lost my entire holding (company delisted and dissolved) and that experience makes me even more cautious now. The problem though is that I might miss the boat if I wait too long. I'm fairly sure that a recovery will be had in the next eighteen months but with a world recession looming, it's still very precarious.

Kindness. Boohoo have enough problems of their own without looking at Asos. I agree that the two mirror each other (in the same sector) but operate somewhat differently on the ground. A merger would only happen if they were desperate. Asos is a far better run company i.m.o ......or was until the covid crisis and things went wrong at the top. Boohoo's present capitalisation is about £530m and Asos's is about £630m ........ridiculously low valuations but that's the market sentiment for a while yet. As I've said before, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Kamani took Boohoo private. And of course there are no 'takeover rumours'. Mile Ashley is in the wings but will only come out of his shell if the company gets into difficulty. Asos ......the jury is out until we see the results in mid October.

As predicted, the JonHarris ramping continues. That didn't take long. Please stop your bs and leave . I fear someone may take you seriously. You're a disgrace and message boards such as this can do without your puerile comments.

I would say this will soon be a good buying opportunity. However not yet. The shorters have their claws in and as a result it will probably drop south of £2, when in my opinion it will be a good long term hold. In terms of the present general downturn, few businesses are left unscathed. With consumers cutting back on online purchases, RMG could be seriously affected by reduced parcel and post volumes. Finally RMG needs modernising. Waste and inefficiencies are rife thanks to it still being highly unionised. It will, hopefully, eventually come good. Just think of the historic advantage it has. Only idiots could mess that up!!