Where do you think they will go to or should i sell now

Just had another dabble @372.3p

They have been banging on about it for a while ,not just yesterday ,i'm surprised at the fall and expect a sharp bounce at some point. As i said earlier their online business alone was recently valued at £4 per share.

Edit i'll try and find the article and post it here.

Me too, 372.9 (Mar Contract) spreads.

Me too 371.1p Looks well overdone given 420p Barclay target and it looks like them who have spooked the market...........

UK Bookmakers downgraded by Barclays Capital
09th January 2014, 14:27

Barclays Capital appears to be turning increasingly bearish on the gambling sector amid further political and regulatory concerns, especially in respect of fixed odds betting terminals.

Betfair [LON:BET] managed to escape the Barclays chop, however, William Hill [LON:WMH] and Ladbrokes [LON:LAD] weren’t so lucky.

William Hill has been downgraded to ‘equal weight’ from ‘overweight’ given the limited upside to the brokers revised target price of 420 pence per share (previously 440 pence).

Meanwhile, Ladbrokes has been added to the brokers list of stocks to avoid and downgraded to ‘underweight’ from ‘equal weight’, with analysts citing a number of contributory factors including its greater exposure to machines, risk of delays to its on-line migration and its weaker sportsbook offering.

The broker has lowered its price target by 10 per cent to 169 pence per share.

In terms of the wider gaming and gambling sector, Barclays said: “Regulatory change has always been the key driver of sentiment toward the gambling sector.

“Yesterday the Labour Party called for greater regulation of the gambling industry in the UK.

“We stress that there has been no change to regulation but we expect that this negative news-flow will weigh on the sector.”

At 2:21pm:

Betfair Group share price was up 0.5 pence at 1,080.5 pence.

Ladbrokes share price was down 11.35 pence at 168.35 pence.

William Hill share price was down 29 pence at 370.8 pence.

Betfair [LON:BET] managed to escape the Barclays chop

That's because they have no shops it's all online therefore no machines ( the crack cocaine of gambling as Miliband put it) and that is all this is about ..

Makes me laugh ,you can loose large amounts anywhere ,maybe Ed should come and have a look at my trading account today .

sorry to hear that young jimmy me lad ...... i've had rather a good day by chance :-)

Not bad all round cynic ,, just WMH was nicely in profit and was intending to hold well in to this year,, now teetering on the edge of a stop loss ,still in for now..

ah .... i effectively don't do stop losses as they're a real pain when sp spikes

Certainly spikey this week. That why i use ATR oscillator on charts. Shows daily volatility. Although not meant for this.

Only use stops for trailing SP.

Dangerous game that cynic .

I'm actually surprised this didn't bounce back a bit better.

William Hill was down more than 7 per cent to 371.1p, while Rank Group, whose Grosvenor Casinos business uses FOBTs, fell by 1.6p to 135.4p.
Analyst Simon French at Panmure Gordon said the falls were an overreaction, given that Labour was defeated in a parliamentary vote on whether to give local authorities power to curb the number of fixed-odds terminals.
‘It is overdone,’ he said. ‘I don’t think the debate went that badly from the perspective of the betting companies, but the market will shop first and ask questions later.’

‘It [the share price fall] provides an attractive entry point to William Hill because it has a broader base of business, geographically and by channel.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/markets/article-2536778/Bookies-dealt-blow-fixed-odds-debate.html

Fingers crossed........

Bounce back ?? good entry point for a buy .

.

Take your pick - update on Friday 17th.

Goodbody Hold 370.40 450.00 375.00 Downgrades

Nomura Buy 370.40 505.00 505.00 Retains

Trading Statement

Improved margin in Q4 with progress on key initiatives

17 January 2014

William Hill PLC (LSE: WMH) (William Hill or the Group) announces a trading update for the 13 weeks from 2 October 2013 to 31 December 2013 (Q4) and the unaudited 52 weeks to 31 December 2013 (full year). The reported comparator periods are the 14 weeks and 53 weeks ended 1 January 2013. For comparison purposes, 13 week and 52 week data are provided, for which the results relating to the week ending 1 January 2013 have been removed.

Ralph Topping, Chief Executive of William Hill, commented:

"Q4 proved a strong end to the year as we enjoyed continued momentum in Sportsbook with 38% more wagered in Q4 on a 13 week basis than last year. This demonstrates our competitive strength in Online ahead of the expected introduction of the Point of Consumption tax in December 2014. We made good progress on key initiatives in the quarter: improving our mobile gaming offer, rolling out the Eclipse gaming machine to over a third of our estate and continuing to enhance Australia's digital capabilities. It is also pleasing to see a turnaround in the profitability of our US business in our first full year of ownership."

Q4

Q4 saw strong underlying net revenue growth from sports betting with above average gross win margins in Retail over-the-counter (OTC) and strong wagering growth from Online Sportsbook. Online gaming net revenue growth rates improved through the period benefitting from improvements to mobile gaming and the Retail estate saw the ongoing roll-out of the Eclipse gaming machine.


more...

Well the bounce back didn't happen ,out for now .

I was out a few days back. Thought the meddling by MPs would mess this up.

It only hit my stop this morning GF ,but your right the threat hanging over possible removal of machines has killed it for now. Those gaming machines are a large percentage of revenue for retail outlets.

Yep 50% of revenue.