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Their chocolate eclairs are prohibitively expensive now. Ditto desserts such as trifles. The price of a little single serving sherry trifle in M&S nowadays is just shy of what a family sized trifle costs in many of the supermarkets. These kind of items used to fly off the shelves but I notice much less so in the past year.
@Synycom - I was in Sainsbury's back before Christmas in the menswear dept and this bloke, in his 60's, started a conversation with me about the underwear. He said that he had shopped at M&S all his life but had finally given up on their menswear. He said that he was really surprised how the underwear in Sainsbury's was half the price and better quality than M&S. He said that he had been putting up with the prices rising and the quality going down in M&S for years but had finally had enough. OK, just an anecdotal. But if they can't get in young or middle-aged people and are now starting to lose the over-60's then what hope is there? I suspect that list of possible store closures will resurface in the coming months.
@Rhambo - I agree. Christmas was not good for any of the retailers. The best one massaged the figures. Only John Lewis / Waitrose was the exception really and we can't buy that! But if they are not doing good at Christmas when are any of them going to do good. We have some head-winds coming in 2018 with rising costs, cash-strapped consumers, etc, so I am of a mindnow to wonder whether UK retail shares aare topping out. I Marks will see the 2017 low again in the coming months and I suspect some of the others - TSCO - will follow suit. Might even see lows below 2017. This Christmas Visa reported - think it was Visa - that people were not buying big ticket items but were instead concentrating on food. That says it all really. But even so, MKS food sales are poor. How are they going to get better in the coming months? I think bad times ahead for all UK retailers.
@Milly - is't over-valuing part and parcel of the EA game to get houses on books over their competitors? I have been hearing shocking stories for 10 years now of allegedly such things going on. That is a big reason why the UK has such ludicrous house prices is it not?
Not watched the prog yet but, having had a look on various financial forums, the reaction seems very negative. But how any of those negative posts are from competing EAs who see PB as a threat is difficult to say. This loan agreement thing needs further investigation. Customers are supposedly, what, applying for a loan when they think that they are simply paying a fee? Is that right? If so, that is a big negative. I am sure that traditional EAs will be using the BBC prog to rubbish PB at every opportunity now. But, when push comes to solve, if the market is so buoyant then people will proably wonder why they should pay more than what PB is charging them. The BOE is trying desperately not to raise IRs out of fear of crashing the housing market - the BOE has created a massive debt bubble and when it pops - it will NOT be different this time - I imagine that every penny will count to the sellers and hence PB's lower fees will be the winner then. But, in the short term, we will have to see how the SP does tomorrow and what the volume is. The big boys could begin distributing I suppose?
Argues that a junk rating is coming to most of the miners in South Africa. http://www.safehaven.com/article/44556/experts-expect-a-wipeout-for-south-african-miners
Do any of you longterm holders have any thoughts on what is happening re Qatar and Saudi? There were reports yesterday that Qatar needs to raise cash by possibility liquidating stock positions - I saw that Sainsbury, BP, Glencore and Barclays were mentioned as being significant positions held by the Qatari govt?
US grocer stocks are getting blitzed. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-16/grocermageddon-goes-global
British retail sales posted the biggest quarterly fall in seven years during the first three months of 2017, as rising prices since last year's Brexit vote started to pressure consumers. Retail sales volumes contracted 1.4 percent in the first quarter following a 0.8 percent rise in the last three months of 2016, the Office for National Statistics said on Friday. That was the biggest quarterly fall since the first quarter of 2010, and is likely to reinforce the view among many economists that household spending - the main driver of the economy - is now slowing. http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-economy-retail-idUKKBN17N0V3
After yesterday's move in gold/silver in the US it would not be unusual to have some profit taking today. It will be interesting how big that profit-taking is. If smallish then this will be bullish MT to LT for PMs but if everyone decides to sell out then we could see gold and silver head back down. Today and tomorrow crucial.
Silver is now 10 cents below where London closed yesterday. UK silver miners are up currently but I will be surprised if that lasts. The USD is back up. Euro is down on worries about Le Pen, European banks. Also saw quite a bit of gold SOS in the US last night after hours.
@seer - I was watching an old BBC doc on youtube about Welsh miners. One chap said how he went into the mines at 14 and there was a major rock fall. He was trapped for a day with his best mate dead beside him. They eventually got him out, sent him home to wash and sleep. He was expected to be back at work the next day. They sent him in to clear up the rocks that had trapped him and killed his friend. He was to dig his friend out.