Member Info for Valueplay

Good shout. I can picture Matt and Oprah in the rose garden in matching neutral tones suits doing a heart to heart.

Shorting unfortunately is part of the system. Heavy shorting can be to a companies advantage. Ocado was once the most heavily shorted share on the FTSE. As their management delivered overseas online grocery solutions contracts then the shorts unwound driving the share price higher and higher.

If the management team and their vision is strong enough they should have a strategy to live with and defeat those shorting the company..

I think he prefers places where he can be interviewed..

Agreed. Personally I do not short shares. I look for buying opportunities at the correct levels. Hence why I'm looking over THG with interest. There's things to like about the company. Plenty of issues though. Was interested in MKS but passed up the buy in opportunity. Have been invested in Ocado since £3 so I have a lot of experience of the ups and downs of growth share investing.

Still watching the THG story. It's a real page turner...

Was bearish Marks n Sparks in the past. Am not currently they have recovered extremely well

Hopefully THG will recover too...

To maintain a big valuation the market needs to believe in THGs management and product and THGs ability to grow and execute.

Currently the market, quite understandably, has no belief in THGs management which has put the share price under considerable pressure. Trust is a very valuable commodity which THG are short of currently..

I wouldn't say it's a sell. It's one to watch as the story gets clearer. If you're happy Mando that's great, money can't buy that.

BlackRock have sold around half of their THG holdings. If BlackRock sold their entire THG holding recently then they would have had to have sold at a significantly lower price than 195p. They would have had to offer a bigger discount to ensure all the shares were bought. We all do not know their thinking but there is a possibility that they are looking to sell their remaining holdings but wanted to see the market reaction when they sold 50% of their stock.

BlackRock are still significant holders of THG shares. A fair possibility that they will reduce their position further in the future though..

Yes BlackRock are a huge fund manager. They are an astute judge who have close contacts to THG.

Time will tell. For me there remains a big possibility that they have correctly seen further issues for THG.

Let's see how this pans out...

True, however to me the BlackRock sale which was carried out on a large scale in a rapid time frame at a heavily discounted price is a very big red flag. Matt's convoluted, inexperienced interviews another stand out red flag that all is not well at the heart of THG.

Anything can happen, let's see what unfolds...

Yes Poker chips. BlackRock could have sold too low and the new buyers could be onto a winner. That's a possibility, currently with the share price as it stands BlackRock are the smart ones.

Much is still unclear re THG and efforts by management recently have dug the company deeper into the mire.

This may well be a great long hold play as the vast majority of the board are saying with an air of certainty.

I think though there is far more downside risk than others realise.

Correction "BlackRock cleverly sold half their huge stake at a knockdown price very recently."

There's a very possible probability that behind the scenes all is not as well as is being portrayed. BlackRock cleverly sold half their huge stake at a knockdown stake very recently.

We will see in time... Comparing THG to Alibaba is a new one.

Mando,

If you believe "Both company performances are good in my opinion." then you are very much divorced from reality. 500p to 183p is very far from good. This coupled with the shambolic interviews Matt Moulding has repetitively given.

It gives very little confidence. Even BlackRock are selling at the very low prices. 195p looking back was a good sell transaction.

It's extremely relevant Mando. You are comparing 2 companies whose performance is completely incomparable. Yes they are both relatively recent UK IPOs but beyond that Darktrace has delivered an exceptional return so far whereas THGs performance has been dire. It's not useful to compare the 2. They are very different companies.

Far better for you to focus on THG. Many red flags out there for THG as previously outlined. Watching from the sidelines currently as the story unfolds

Darktrace IPO price 250p, now 554p

THG IPO price 500p, now 189p.

Vastly different performances from the 2 companies...

dancingqueen76,

Great posts. Hope you can post more on this Ocado board in future. Well done on your Ocado profits so far.

Agreed re the Ocado fires. Since they focussed on robotics Ocado has operated on the edge of what is possible. So many over the years have believed online grocery to be a fad and furthermore that automating the process was not possible or profitable. Fast forward to the present day and online grocery is a common service which grocers all around the world are trying their utmost to automate. When you operate on the edge of the possible then mistakes will happen. The key is to try and limit the mistakes and when you do make them then learn as much as you can from them. As you say the Erith Ocado fire was small, damage was limited, the cause identified and rectified. A world of difference from the Andover fire which the company learnt a great deal from.

If anyone is investing now then the key short term issue/ risk to the share price is the current ITC law suit in the USA that Autostore has brought against Ocado for patent infringement. An initial judgement re the case is due before 13th Dec 2021. Personally I believe Autostore have brought the case in large part to try and slow Ocados progress. I believe the outcome will not be greatly detrimental to Ocado. Possibilities of there being a share price boost for Ocado. Important for anyone that they look into the court case for themselves. The issue has been discussed in great detail on this board and you will find a wealth of information regarding the case if you look over historic threads on this board.

The future is very bright for Ocado. Great possibilities of new online grocery contracts. Further expansion expected for Ocado outside of online grocery as they utilise their cutting edge technology to solve other issues in other sectors. More CFC orders expected by existing online grocery customers across the world. Kroger contract is showing signs it could greatly exceed the initial 20 CFC order Kroger placed with Ocado.

Personally, yes, I believe now is a good time to invest in Ocado. As always though there will be some wild short term ups and downs with this share. Very good returns in prospect in the long term imo.

Best to all.

Investors need to look at how they perceive the future and stick by that. Tech shares have so many wobbles. Many fail but some succeed wonderfully.

Usually the ones who succeed have superior management who give the company the ability to ride the waves of share price boom n bust leading to a vision of the future being delivered down the track. Essential also that a company has big shareholders who back that vision giving the company a bedrock of a high percentage of shareholder support throughout its grow phase.

To simply compare revenues v market cap is extremely simplistic. Potential future revenues is what the market is valuing highly for Darktrace, driving it's market cap higher, more than for THG. It's not where a company is now, it's where it will be in 5/10/20 years time...

The case was filed in July 2020. Until now the legal case has not been mentioned by THG hence the current news story.

The case against THG was filed in July 2020. Only now is it coming to light..