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Didn't say the short was that high. Did say that Citadel are shorting MKS. The RNS I believe reflects part of their complex holdings/trading strategy. Overall I'm sure they are short. They have been short MKS recently

Think you'll find that US based investor is in fact shorting MKS. RNS references an equity swap. More drift down...

@Tame2017 I referred to the Ocado tie up in my post. It will go well, will mitigate some risk. Problem is there is a huge amount of unmitigated risk in the rest of the MKS business susceptible to a second wave of Covid. Ocado having no stores and deriving most of their value from their technology sales do not face these risks. They would benefit wholly from that scenario.

Who needs share price rises when you have nostalgia and Percy pigs eh? Good luck

Reduction in loss was largely due to £100 mill negative being booked in last half re Andover fire and positive £35 mill being booked in this half re insurance claim receipt re the fire. Aside from this Ocado are bursting with potential currently. All appears to still being run extremely well by capable, innovative management team.

@neilhumphreys5ya, yes market's value based on the future. Todays 7%+ move in the Ocado share price is backing my view that its future profits still are not sufficiently priced into its current share price. I know that the board are trying to revolutionise MKS. The scale of change though and the cost of it is causing MKS to be a laggard in share price moves and will constrain it going forward as other competitors share prices outpace MKS.

@Tame2017

So many people do not understand Ocado's business so I'm unsurprised by your question. The vast majority of Ocado's value is in its technology arm. A second wave would give further impetus to retailers all around the world to sign up to Ocado's Smart platform to run their online grocery delivery businesses profitably. These contracts are extremely lucrative to Ocado and explain why Ocado has a market capitalization value of around 8 times that of MKS.

MKS in a second wave will lose huge amounts of store revenue. Consumer confidence would be knocked further. A large amount of that revenue will not be taken up by MKS's online operations. Their tie up with Ocado would go well but it is at its limit capacity wise so there are only modest capabilities in the short term of more sales to further expand sales.

MKS's failing store network will cost a huge amount to restructure to the new normal world. Vast amounts of its stores are in expensive locations that are not suitable to the current pandemic consumer environment. Post pandemic many consumer behaviours will have changed permanently. More work from home, less city centre buzz will hit their stores hard

@Trojanhorse

MKS's share price has fallen year on year for good reason. Failure to innovate until a last grasp of the straw in making an expensive more to tie up with Ocado. That move will pay off for them but they should have made moves many, many years ago. Shares do not fall from £5 to £1 because of noise. There's a lot of sentiment on this board. The market is savage at the moment. It can see the weaknesses in MKS's business and has no room for sentiment.

Agreed gioviano, one of the reasons I believe this share has much further to go is that so many, including top analysts, do not understand Ocado's value and the huge revenue stream they are building some years down the line. I'm encouraged when I hear the same old why is Ocado worth x when it only makes y of profits. When I stop hearing that chime it will be a sign that the potential of this company has been fully baked into the share price.

No short. Just observations from the research I've carried out. I'm long OCDO which is a very solid investment for the coming months...

They will have to decimate their store model/locations. It is totally it out of tune to the new normal we have going forward. Share holders will back and be understanding until the scale of the losses and cost of reorganization is revealed. Significant second wave of Covid will put MKS in a world of difficulty

I view it as a poor contrarian investment. Much better candidates out there. Broken business model (the store side of their business). Second wave of Covid likely to hit consumer confidence in the high street extremely hard and further imbed changes in consumer behaviour. Ocado tie up will not make up for failings on the store side.

The share price is drifting down and the shorters are circling in larger numbers for good reason.

New retail v old retail. Future incredibly bright for Ocado. Future very bright for Ocado retail when it ties up with MKS in September. Future very bleak for MKS store retail. Face masks a necessary move but will leave more to chose online shopping. MKS stores strengths in workwear and office lunches blown apart by the work from home shift. Food halls in general not big enough for a new normal shop where if the consumer does venture out they want to do all good shopping in one place. City centre locations and office dense location of stores incompatible with new normal world.

No surprises expected. I'd expect confirmation that they are still running Ocado retail UK at absolute capacity. Ocado services platform income should rise a little as the Paris and Toronto CFC's have started up. Major earnings increases are still later on though. They may drop info to analysts on whether there are any more contract wins in the pipeline. That would cause a major price move either way. Good luck all. Ocado management have been exemplary in running this superb business and scaling it up over the years. Hoping for more good news tomorrow.

MKS will be a victim not a victor on the high street.

Yes, the Ocado partnership part of their business is very bright. However the rest is in huge trouble. The shares have further to fall.

Ocado is growing though at 40%+ compared to last year. It is undergoing an absolutely huge pandemic growth period in the UK. MKS will have half of the profits from this huge leap in sales when the partnership starts. Fall in MKS share price down to many failings in the other parts of its business. Stores focussing in city centres, train stations, office sectors of cities. With the huge move to home working there is and will be ongoing a huge footfall decrease in these stores. TM Lewin are closing all stores Pret a manger are making 1,000 redundant. They are cutting edge retailers in officewear and office lunch. If they are floundering MKS surely will. It will take more than a trim of stores, needs a huge reorganisation.

Ocado's collaboration with Sobeys has launched in Toronto. Delivering to part of the city initially then will be scaling up quickly. Interesting to see how they are selling the venture to consumers. See link below "Our robots pack orders. Our teammates deliver. Safely and with less handling." It was a feature of Ocado's offer that hadn't been advertised to retail consumers much before. In the pandemic it's becoming a key differentiating aspect

https://voila.ca/content/about-us

Ignore second half of my last post.

The shorts are onto M&S for good reason. Their stores are in the wrong places in this "new normal" that we will be experiencing for at least a year to come. Ongoing structural changes to work patterns will leave the store network in need of more than a hatchet job to reconfigure.

main thing is that they seem to have the will to radically change the business and unlike most of their rivals can do so without decimating it because of the Ocado deal. Their shareholders will back them 100%