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I suspect many of the broker ratings are now out of date. Things have moved very quickly regarding this share. I believe many of the analysts will be revisiting their ratings. Possibilities of downgrades.

Ocado at one point (2016/7) was the most shorted share on the FTSE. Then the Casino group deal occured and shorts closed propelling the share upwards. This pattern replicated as shorts closed after various Ocado group deals pushing the share price higher and higher.

There will always be lots of shorts around the Ocado group. Question is can Ocado group sign more contracts, increase shareholder value and expand further to prove the shorters wrong again. Personally I believe they will...

Recently Ocado shares have had a good rise from the recent low of £15.50. Some could be selling after making profits. As ever though the Ocado share price is a huge tug of war between the shorts and longs. Some brokers still say that Ocado has very little value. Others forecast the shares to rise sharply in the future. In the absence of news the shares can be very volatile. In general UK growth shares are a little out of favour currently.

Ocado TV adverts have little to no effect on Ocados share price.

Great post Discern,

Agreed re the fine tuning and that Ocado are on other companies shopping lists. It's my view that Ocado has had others enquire to buy the company out cheaply in the past however Tim Steiner and team saw the bigger vision and chose to lead the expansion to where it is today - Multiple tech contracts with some of the biggest grocers in the world giving Ocado the current £13bill+ valuation.

Gently bubbling upwards at the moment. Continued huge potential in many areas at Ocado. I see the share price rising further as the potential is again translated into reality...

Very interesting move by Tesco. An obvious one to utilise some of their spare store capacity and gain a bigger foothold in the ultra fast delivery market. They will have to pay good fees to Gorillas though and purchases will have to go through the Gorillas app.

The now fully automated Ocado Zoom model will be rolling out in direct competition. Bigger range and more robotics should bring greater efficiencies than the Gorillas model.

https://news.sky.com/story/tesco-and-gorillas-partner-for-rapid-grocery-deliveries-12453467

Have been following the going on at UK company The Hut group (THG). SoftBank invested £750m earlier this year in THG at 590p a share. Currently their shares are worth 220p.

Conclusion, and relevance to this Ocado board, SoftBank investing in a company (as it has done with Autostore) is by no means a sign the company is a winner...

https://www.morningstar.ca/ca/news/216330/stocks-to-benefit-from-ultrafast-delivery.aspx

"As part of its digital efforts, Kroger took a mid-single-digit percentage stake in European online grocery leader Ocado. “We believe the deal should significantly accelerate Kroger's development of its deliver-to-home and click-and-collect offerings, with Ocado's flexible, low-cost warehouse-based model extending Kroger's reach beyond its existing markets in a cost-efficient, tested manner,” Akbari notes."

Fair enough pursestrings.

Meanwhile the share price is pushing bigger as the market sees the current opportunities. Revenue streams from Groupe Casino and Sobeys and Kroger are currently flowing. Kroger obviously want a lot more than 20cfcs from Ocado. Ocado retail capacity now ramping up greatly at a crucial time. Recent bond refinancing allowed Ocado to borrow an extra £200m at lower than currently available rates.

Massive potential for Ocado to gain new online grocery partners. Also massive opportunity to gain more customers outside of online grocery...

Ocado are at the very cutting edge of world robotics and retailing. Huge potential for further growth as they use their heavily patented technology in other fields.

Hope THG comes good. Am following the THG story from the sidelines with interest...

You find often that brokers often dig their heels in and defend their points of view rather than admit their previous price targets were out of touch.

Some are very positive on Ocado, some are not. That will always be the case..

Ocado have developed an automated robotic online delivery model where there was none before. Extraordinary complexities to overcome. Different temperatures/ fragilities/ short shelf life of grocery items. They are further ahead than Amazon currently in robotic online grocery fulfillment. As such they can charge high fees from their customers who are happy to sign up to the Ocado platform rather than build their own which would be prohibitively costly. You need to be the very best in online grocery these days with Amazon snapping at everyone's heels. Being average isn't good enough by far..

I've not enough knowledge of THG to equate it to Ocado. I do know a vast amount about Ocado though..

Hope things improve for THG but there are great differences between itself and Ocado as this recent article outlines...

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-10-20/thg-is-a-long-ways-off-from-resembling-powerhouse-ocado

Credit Suisse price target was 1550p. They reduced it today to 1500p. Little change.

The market saw through their advice later in the day and snapped up the shares at the lower price.

The broker Shore Capital refused to even rate (meaning they believe the shares have little value) Ocado shares when they were floated in 2010 at 180p. To date they still refuse to rate the shares. Brokers need to give clear advice to their clients. Often they research and set out strong advice and stand by it year after year regardless.

The market is the true test. It can see value if it's there and will push the share price up accordingly...

The CS analysis is to be expected. They have been negative for a long time towards Ocado. The market went with their advice today taking the share price down into the 1760's today before bouncing back to only be modestly down.

Since the Kroger announcement the Ocado share price has bounced £2+ reversing the Ocado share out of its recent slump. To myself and the market it is clear the Kroger announcement was very much out of the ordinary. I expected the 5 new CFCs but thought they'd be built near Krogers existing store base. CFC in the North East USA where Kroger have no stores) was a big surprise. Clearly showed that the current Florida CFC has impressed greatly. The Florida zoom store again was a big surprise. I wasn't sure Kroger would commit at all to Ocado zoom. The California announced new CFCs running same day delivery - also surprising.

Good news flowing currently. The market understands this. Buyers are coming in strongly on share price dips...

Best to all.

That's the daily end of day uncrossing trade Halma. It's a daily book balancing/accounting entry. Ignore that trade.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59027423

Tesco grocery app still down for me...

Bad news for Tesco. Wouldn't say it's bad news for Ocado. Depends what security there is on a website and if it's up to standard. Tesco grocery app still out for me. It's a major outage. Customers will be worried over their data and will go to other online grocery retailers as this continues...

Covid rising plus more delayed reaction to the superb recent Kroger announcement. Great recent bond refinancing by Ocado was extremely timely. Leaves the company on a firmer footing at a crucial time..

After a while I was able to book my Christmas slot. Booked for 22nd Dec, not as close to Xmas as I would have liked but am happy to compromise in this exceptional year of huge demand.

I understand your feeling Discern. Good to float ideas between us. The Autostore case has become a little clearer recently. I believe many companies are looking over Ocado currently. Whether they will take the plunge and bid in the near future? maybe not but these are critical times to roll out and get your hands on end to end automated technology so just maybe something will happen.

Bigger likelihood for me is that a bigger company will take a stake in Ocado, much like SoftBank did with Autostore. The bigger company would get access to Ocados tech whilst Ocado would gain a firmer financial footing to develop and expand quicker. Insulating themselves from the rising interest rates that are near. .

Ocados top 2 shareholders control around 25% of Ocados shares. Another way a big company could gain a stake in Ocado, without Ocado issuing more shares, is by offering them £25 a share and I think they'd sell up...