ASOS have dropped quite significantly in the past week for no particular reason and I view this as the perfect opportunity to invest as I can see them bouncing right back up to the 5.50p mark in the next 2-3 weeks. STRONG BUY!!

Hi ethel, hope you're not a stalker. I have had shares in ASC since last year. IMO there are only two runners in this field, NXT and ASC. Apart from actual trading amounts, both seem to be experiencing similar trading pattern. ASC has brought more to their web site since my initial purchase and hopefully, the new warehousing will give them the punch to offer more online with confidence that they can deliver extra. I believe that the younger age group (teens to 30's) go for ASOS for trend and fashion whereas the smartset and born again teenagers go to NEXT (less exposure at the midriff!!)for office clothes, holiday and partytime. So I believe each has some niche and have good mileage ahead.

deancroft: helpful comment; seems a good insider view? Good comarison with NXT. The problem with NXT is that they have two minds as tow hether their internet activity is taking away from their retail shops. Another reason for buying ASC. Eric

Hi Eric. Big problem with NEXT shops is range. Different high street locations stock different ranges (size and style)according to local demand. A NEXT stock clearance warehouse at Castleford (Yorks) has lots of end of ranges simply because they cannot sell on the High Street. The warehouse has lots of size 8-10 whereas the lady in the street needs average size 14 to 16. The small Lincoln branch stocks a good range of petite, 30 miles away the larger Scunthorpe branch doesn't. On the website you can order anything so, yes, the stores will suffer but only because of local store management, IMO.

Helpful deancroft. Do keep posting as it is really helpful to have the inside view. What do you think of ASC's deal with Miss Sixty (evidently priced lower than Miss Sixty shops) and movement to own brand? Do you see them making progress with the boy friends? How about the suggestion of adding DTV which could appeal to a different clientele?

Eric

Eric, Miss Sixty range is available locally to us in Binns (House of Fraser I think). The jeans range for the ladies is very desireable 60 - 100 range so selling cheaper on the web is a bonus. ASOS own brand will be limited IMO as the age range of purchasers are very brand conscious. NEXT have it different because their predominant brand is NEXT brand. Progress on the male front is awkward. In the age range we are talking about for ASC, offering of sizes is not exactly in tune with the market. The girls are more size 6-10 but the boys are (or want to be)"beefcake" and I'm told the sizes offered for male clothes don't really match up. I know one slim 20 year old who buys sizes much bigger just to look more impressive to the girls. If you have a Yates Bar or Chicago pub, check out the clientele. I presume by DTV you mean digital telly. Don't know what to say on that one, haven't got one myself, don't have time to watch it. I think that those who want to buy clothes from ASC are less likely to be sat in front of a TV, more likely to be in front of a computer at work or home but I guess it is still comes down to getting as many audiences as possible.

There you have it - the Eric and Dean show. Very informative and erudite as always - thank you. ASC is definitely a buy - timing probably a metter of personal idiosyncracy.

Always good to buy on a FTSE down day.

SWALKIES - work it out and let me know - a prize(?) for the best answer.

SD

For those with an interest in these matters ASC closed this evening on the 200 day m.a. This is the markets standard long term moving average...if one was LONG one would not want it to close for 2 days below this level. However if one was SHORT you would be counting on it to bring home the gravy. John

And if one was waiting in the wings, you would be waiting for it to drop to an even better buying position! Eric

This could produce quite a bit of technical selling over the next couple of days, I guess.

Next support level is 45p ish and that is not too strong.

We shall see what appetite the MMs have to take on more stock at this stage.

SD

SO,are they renting or buying?Will they close down the existing warehouses.If everything is under one roof stock control etc has to be tighter.More vulnerable in the event of a fire,for ex.If they retain other distribution points the logistics get harder.Their success depends upon getting the products distributed efficiently,thereby improving margins.This is going to be the test.Hope they make it.Deancroft,I don't know what a stalker is in stock market terminology....it sounds horrible.Is it a person who follows a stock around and tries to get inside it and then gets caught and has to go to court??That's NOT me.Ethel

Sorry ethel, but after pvr, canadian coal and hydrogen fuel cells I now find you on ASC thread. Perhaps not so much as stalking but bumping into each other. No offence meant. say it with flowers.

Well deancroft, "Quis stalket stalkiores?" as they used to say in Rome.

How to interpret today? 763k buys to 199k sells (rough count) and the price falls off below the 200dma at the end of the day.

Is this the final phase of the shake out by the MM's or are weheading for a major retracement to lower levels?

Eric, over to you for some comforting words, please.

SD

stockdog: We are indeed 'hovering' on the brink as far as the Technicals are concerned. Fridays close now very important as with smaller stocks the EOW has extra importance IMO. John

stockdog

I was wondering the same myself! Just been going through the trades and have the following comments:
1. The trade buy for 300K is the closure of a position, presumably, and therfore the buys may have been over a period of time (is this reasonable, anyone?)
2. ASC moved ahead in early trades, quite surprising how it seemed to be reacting to smalltrades as though the MMs were particularly sensitive.
3. At 11:35 they widen the spread although trades have been fairly balanced, almost as if they are not keen to have any more sells.
4. Then, bang, a 50K sale at 11:54. Will come back to that.
5. A trade buy of 250K so, in the day, that makes 550K and it may be that we can discount them from the total bringing the day back more or less into balance.
6. A couple of decent 25K buys at 15:41 seem to have no effect, then, bang, a 20K sale at 15:48 and the price spread drops to 58-60p. Why? Will come back to that.
7. At 16:09 there is a buy of 15K and the bid price has dropped to 57.5p, presumably to deter sellers. The day ends with several small sellers - poor folk!

An interesting day and I hope johngtudor will comment. I am interested in 2 sales, one of 50K and one of 20K. It appears to be common knowledge that evil knieval has been shorting ASC and I have been keeping an eye on what appears to be the technique, i.e. that you put in a decent sell at regular intervals, normally a round multiple of 20K or 25K, and at strategic moments, thus driving the price down. Frightened small holders help the process by being shaken out. I had expected the process to stop at the 60p support level but he is nothing if not persistant. What occurs to me, in trying to explain the day, is that the MMS are frightened of him as well. He could be selling stock that they don't want to have! Would appreciate comments. I will hold my horses before commenting further about how to respond.

ethel

I hope you don't mind me asking in the light of the above. But, are you either (a) shorting ASC or (b) cooperating with a team that is. The reason why I ask this is that you failed to respond to my case for buying ASC and came back with very negative worries about the need for new warehousing. If not, are you a holder or participating because you are thinking about acquiring ASC shares?

Eric

Que sera sera Johngtudor. Shoulda sold out at 88p last year and come back in somewhere near here.

I'm in a number of what I think of as virgin lift off stocks - where they go through their first rapid vertical rise - SEO, DOO, FOGL, ASC. The chart doesn't really give you much to go on at the first high peak. In retrospect (funny that) it all seems so simple what you should have done.

Remember China Wonder CWO - from 25p placing price to intraday high of 125p in 3 days flat - being in just for the fun of the first Chinese stock on AIM, I never intended to hold, but was disappointed to get out at only 75p eventually. Still, being my third stock I bought, it paid for the losses I made on the first two!

Selling, as I suspect for many of us, is my weakest link. We need to be just more callous. Take a nice profit and worry about getting back in lower if it happens.

SD

I am not shorting ASC as I am interesting in making a FIRST investment into this interesting stock and am waiting to see where the price goes from here.My worries are legitimate.I am sorry if I have upset you...et tu stock canis.I live in Portugal,Deancroft,so you are quite safe!!!Am not consiously following you around but am interested in VTI and HYR among other shares.Your flowers broghtened a rather dull day.Thankyou.Ethel

sorry about the gaelic...should read brightened...

Ethel

Don't be put off by being accused of shorting - people are far too sensitive sometimes IMVHO. Certainly no apology to me required.

Given today's events, the chart has turned into a persuasive downward phase with no visible reversal till we get there.

Follow the old adage buy on a falling market - and get in any time now with half your ideal holding, but be prepared to go through the rest of the dip (during which phase you put in the other half) before you come up the other side for the ride to profits which fundamentals of the stock and the economy tell me there will be.

Or wait for a decisive move up to tell you the falling phase is over and quickly put in your full quota.

This second is safer. The first is more profitable, but riskier. You pays your money takes your choice - risk versus reward. Don't forget it's not like gambling where there is no intrinsic value in the bet - there is a minimum real present value to the company, assuming flat future earnings. The rest of the value is the anticipation of rising earnings.

Much easier to write this than to act on it, always. Hope this helps. MYOMU - I know nothing.

SD

Eric
Very interesting. I think probably the shorters have got the MM's a little bit on the run - how much free stock is out there do you reckon - not a whole heap, which always makes the price movement more extreme, doesn't it.
If the MM's have dropped the price one last significant step to stop the shorters, then they will have done their work - the shorting will stop and positions will have to be closed. Or it might continue lower tomorrow. As johngtudor says, EOW closing is probably worth waiting for before taking any action.

Given that for every sell there is an equal and opposite buy (even MM's are only part of the market) an unexplained sell off, even more so a falling SP when buys > gains, should statistically be taken as some form of market manipulation which, whilst antithetical to our fundamentalist approach, nonetheless creates opportunities for us to get in on retracements, so why dislike shorters so much?

A sell off after negative comment is much more worrying because the shares become 3 day old fish which nobody wants. That is a very unhappy process.

But, ASC has been copybook perfect in its concept, timing, marketing, logistics and been rewarded with fantastic and foreseeably continuing growth - real pound coins going into the till in ever increasing numbers.

Have you read the quite large numbers of recent articles about how buying boring, low rated, dividend bearing shares over 10 years plus make more money than growth shares. Well, ASC will become one of those boring cash cows and we are buying into it at a discount for time and risk now.

Will someone shoot the old dog - he's rambling again. Wake me up when we hit bottom.

SD