Results out soon in August.

Broker recos look very bullish and why not on a P/E of just over 6 to 2011.....

Thomas Cook Group PLC

FORECASTS 2010 2011
Date Rec Pre-tax (�) EPS (p) DPS (p) Pre-tax (�) EPS (p) DPS (p)

Panmure Gordon
02-08-10 BUY 319.00 27.10 11.30 338.00 28.70 12.40

Exane BNP Paribas
02-08-10 BUY 116.00 26.62 10.75 319.00 28.87 11.66

Numis Securities Ltd
02-08-10 ADD 324.20 27.60 11.25 357.10 29.90 11.81

Oriel Securities
02-08-10 BUY 330.40 28.40 11.40 363.50 31.30 12.10

KBC Peel Hunt Ltd
30-07-10 BUY 301.06 25.22 10.75 313.36 26.23 10.93

WestLB
30-07-10 SELL 28.81 11.52 29.91 11.96

Shore Capital
30-07-10 HOLD 312.00 26.50 11.80 347.00 29.50 13.00

Charles Stanley Securities
15-06-10 HOLD

Evolution Securities Ltd
11-02-10 None

Investec Securities [R]
09-02-10 BUY 327.00 27.30 11.74 352.23 29.39 12.49

Fyshe Horton Finney Ltd
25-01-10 BUY

Collins Stewart
24-12-09 BUY

Nomura Research Institute
25-09-09 RED

2010 2011
Pre-tax (�) EPS (p) DPS (p) Pre-tax (�) EPS (p) DPS (p)

Consensus 316.42 26.98 11.36 342.50 29.39 11.96

1 Month Change 1.07 -0.22 0.01 3.43 -0.14 -0.14
3 Month Change -11.92 -1.09 -0.05 -11.79 -1.00 -0.44


GROWTH
2009 (A) 2010 (E) 2011 (E)

Norm. EPS 2.76% 0.38% 8.92%
DPS 14.03% 10.80% 5.26%

INVESTMENT RATIOS
2009 (A) 2010 (E) 2011 (E)

EBITDA �574.90m �589.69m �613.90m
EBIT �372.50m �420.55m �447.05m
Dividend Yield 5.38% 5.96% 6.27%
Dividend Cover 2.62x 2.38x 2.46x
PER 7.10x 7.07x 6.49x
PEG 2.57f 18.55f 0.73f
Net Asset Value PS -240.80p 224.47p 240.43p

July 31:
Nomura: Neutral - TP: 123p
Barclays: Equalweight - TP: 122p

International Buy 118.50 118.50 165.00 145.00 Reiterates

Berenberg Sell 118.50 118.50 130.00 100.00 Downgrades

Aug 5:
Goldman Sachs: Sell - TP: 100p
Jefferies: Buy - TP:. 145.00

What a surprise that TCG's house broker Jeffries is unrealistically bullish. Surely no one believes what a house broker has to say. Whenever did a house broker say SELL?

Aug 10: Citigroup reiterates: Neutral - TP: 115p (down from 150p on 27 July).

Daily Mail:
"Thomas Cook could get swept up in a wave of mergers in the travel industry, according to City chatter.
Rumours abounded that Chinese conglomerate Fosun International, which bought a 5 per cent stake in Thomas Cook for £92m in March, could buy the rest of the British tour operator.
In June, Cook formed a Chinese joint venture with Fosun, which is backed by billionaire Guo Guangchang, dubbed ‘China’s Warren Buffett’.

that would be very nice for my sipp .... don't hold in trading a/c any more

Watch Thomas Cook share price move north. All the chart indicators are showing it is in an uptrend and volume has started picking up. Keep an eye on the volume data going forward.

Chinese companies investment strategy is to first buy a small % in the company and then at the right time buy the whole company.

Yeah Yeah,
but short term maybe after all needs to go down from the 119.50p at the moment

Indicators are showing well overbought

down to 110p would be a 50% retracement, just about right to climb again.

I have a buy order waiting to be filled on the spreads @ 123p if filled initial target 140p looks like solid support @ 100p

Hope it doesn't get filled today though.

mentor, I would not say this share is overbought. It will go up and correctly the first target is 140 on high volume.

StockMarketWire.com
Thomas Cook Group said with its Summer 2015 holiday programme now almost fully sold, trading has progressed well overall. It noted all markets were performing in line with its expectations, while Northern Europe has enjoyed particularly strong trading in the second half of the year.

"Our underlying business has continued to develop in line with our expectations, despite the impact of disruption in certain destinations and significant foreign exchange headwinds, as previously announced," the company said in a statement.

"Demand for our differentiated holidays has accelerated in Northern Europe during the course of the year and has continued to grow in the UK, while conditions in Continental Europe have remained challenging.

"Our airlines have experienced strong demand as our strategy of investing in the customer experience, expanding our route network and growing our seat only business is paying off. Accordingly, we expect our financial results for the current financial year to be in line with our expectations at the time of our third quarter announcement in July."

CEO Peter Fankhauser commented:
"Our trading performance for the Summer season has progressed well, despite the impact of external shocks in certain destination markets, as previously announced. With more than a third of the Winter 2015/16 season sold, the bookings profile for next year is also encouraging.

"Over the last three years we have made excellent progress transforming our business. We have developed a strong core holiday proposition based around our own-brand hotels, reduced our cost base, and strengthened our capital structure.

"The next phase of transformation will aim to better integrate our businesses across geographies, with a higher quality and more focused holiday offering delivered through our New Operating Model.

"With the benefit of our strong brands and through our absolute focus on customer needs, I am confident that this strategy will lead to an even better holiday experience for our customers, further improving our growth and profitability, and increasing returns to shareholders."

Highlights
· Winter 2015/16 trading has started positively, with improved bookings in all major source markets

· Demand has continued to grow for our differentiated holidays, particularly to our own-brand hotels

· Guidance for the full year remains consistent with our expectations at the time of our third quarter results in July

· Our focus is on moving the Group into the next phase of transformation in order to generate growth, through an improved customer experience and more efficient and better integrated operations

Getting closer to the next retracement point, last time it went down to 112.50p, not the 110p.
This time with this negative Egypt tourist business shares could drop to 105p or event to 100p low lately reached last August.

curious that EZJ has had a strong day, though they too fly into sharm

Down 106.20p and then 105.80p so close to targets

re - Target 100p

the target has been reached and cross now on going under it

98.925p the price now

phew!
that was a relief, for i thought i still held them in my sipp, but note that i got out in mid may at 156, albeit with some bruising

Thomas Cook swings to FY profit

StockMarketWire.com

Thomas Cook has swung to a FY pretax profit of GBP119m, from a prior-year loss of GBP115m. Revenue was much lower at GBP7.8bn, from GBP8.6bn. It expected a dividend to paid early in 2017 in respected of FY 2016.

CEO Peter Fankhauser said 2015 was a year of real progress as good trading combined with rigorous cost control delivered Thomas Cook's first positive profit after tax in five years.

"Despite turbulence in some of our destinations, the underlying business performed in line with our plans at the start of the year, demonstrating its greater resilience," he said.

The company said it had a significantly stronger balance sheet with extended maturities and new, enlarged banking facilities.

SOME HIGHLIGHTS:

· Traded well overall despite external headwinds

· Strong performance in our UK business which increased underlying EBIT by 42% to £119 million

· Northern Europe and Airlines Germany grew underlying EBIT by 23% and 19% respectively

· Underlying EBIT in Continental Europe declined by 21% due to more competitive environment; actions taken to restore profitable growth

· Encouraging start to next year with strong Winter 15/16 trading in the UK and Northern Europe

CEO'S VIEW

Fankhauser continued his commentary:

"Customers have responded well to our increased focus on higher-quality hotels with our own-brand properties proving particularly popular, growing bookings by more than 40% over the year. We have continued to build on this success with the launch of a new boutique concept, Casa Cook, with the first hotel set to open next spring in Rhodes.

"Looking across the Group, the UK continued to strengthen as a better quality holiday offering and other business improvements delivered a 42% increase in underlying operating profit. Northern Europe and our German airlines business also performed well with underlying operating profits up 23% and 19% respectively. As previously highlighted, Continental Europe, particularly Germany and France, were weaker due to more competitive trading conditions.

"Of course, the past year has also presented considerable challenges for Thomas Cook as we confronted the mistakes that were made following the deaths of Bobby and Christi Shepherd in Corfu nine years ago. I am clear that we need to learn from the tragedy and do things differently in the future. Last week, we launched the Safer Tourism Foundation together with the children's mother, Sharon Wood.

"But we also recognise that change needs to come from within Thomas Cook, putting our customers first in everything that we do. That is why we have introduced customer satisfaction as a new internal measure of success and why we are rolling out a 24-hour hotel satisfaction promise for key hotels across the group. It is also why we are putting a renewed focus on the quality of our holiday offering and pushing hard to further develop our online and retail channels.

"During the year our staff have shown great dedication in times of crisis, working tirelessly to support our customers. Their response to recent events in both Egypt and, earlier in the year, Tunisia, shows what we can achieve when we pull together. In a time of geopolitical uncertainty, that level of customer care is a key advantage of our packaged holiday offering.

"The new financial year has got off to a good start with encouraging trading overall for Winter 2015/16 and Summer 2016. With our business on a firmer financial footing, we have a clear strategy in place to deliver greater value for customers and sustainable growth for our shareholders."

JP Morgan Cazenove today reaffirms its overweight investment rating on Thomas Cook Group PLC (LON:TCG) and raised its price target to 170p (from 165p).