After a difficult trading year that has seen losses for CCT and the sp nose-dive to 25p at one point the solution to return to profits may come from the launch of electronic Sudoku games in time for Christmas. Character will launch two Carol Vorderman Sudoku products. For Sudoku fans on the move, there are two handy travel size products: a hand-held LCD game (19.99) with over 750 grids, and a touch screen version (29.99), with over 100,000 permutations of the game. A plug and play version, allowing addicts to play Sudoku on their home TV (29.99) will follow later this year. It won't take many sales to rack up good profits if these are anywhere near as addictive as the puzzle books have proved to be so far.
500,000 sold at guess 5 profit per item would rack up 2.5m, with less than 53m shares that is a healthy EPS of 4p on one item alone and my estimate is probably conservative? They also have licensing rights to Dr Who, Little Britain and Batman amongst others.
Also 70% of these shares are in the hands of Directors, Pension Trusts and Funds and as has been seen in recent weeks, moderate buying has pushed up the share price. It has all the hallmarks of a possible recovery stock as was IDS which I tipped last year at 81p and is now 382p. Not saying this will reach those heights but if Sudoku sells well this Christmas expect CCT to show a good start to their financial year. 2005 figures ending August 31st will not be good but we don't buy shares on the past, there is no gearing and 8m of shareholders funds available.
Take a look. The profits could be more pleasing than solving the puzzles.

Looks like a profit-taking week? Seems to be on decreasing volume throughout the week so I'm not worried - it may be an attempt to fill the gap up on 12 Feb.

Steve

The Character Group plc
Interim Results for the six months ended 28 February 2007

Highlights

Continuing Business (Toys, Games and Gifts)
6 months to 6 months to
28 February 2007 28 February 2006
m m
Turnover 56.0 40.7
Operating profit 6.6 3.7
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Earnings per share - basic 10.05p 5.69p
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dividend
Interim dividend of 2.0 pence per share, an increase of 21.2% over last year
(2006 1.65 pence). This dividend is covered approximately 5 times by earnings

Cash at Bank on 28 February 2007 was 11.86 million (2006: 10.3 million).
This is after taking account of share buy-backs undertaken during
the period totalling 3.4 million

New Licences Secured include:
The Master Licence for the Sarah Jane Adventures TV Series (as a spin-off from
the Doctor Who series)
Pan European Master Toy Contract for Dork Hunters from Outer Space

New Products include:
Doctor Who Dalek Sec Hybrid Voice Changer Helmet
Spidersapien, a fusion of Spiderman 3 and our 2005 award winning Robosapien,
which is expected to be our lead line for our range of Spiderman 3 toys

New Ranges include:
Bindeez
Movin' & Groovin' Flowers
This Is Me (a new range of soft body dolls)
Dragonfly
Roboquad (our new Robotic introductions)

Toy of the Year accolade for Doctor Who Cyberman Helmet

'Taking into account the on-going strong demand for our continuing lines and our
new introductions, we are very excited about our prospects and expect to see
further exciting growth as we continue to build our existing brands and develop
new ones.'
Richard King, Chairman

Interim profits exceed expectations, EPS 9.3p for 6 months, very strong performance. This has exceeded my own expectations since starting the thread.
Took some profits on the way but still have original first buys.
Onwards and upwards.

Figures look good to me. FY EPS should be at least 13p, and that's if you take figures for FY ending August 2006, where sales are obviously way behind current levels.

I assume that newly-issued SP targets of 250p are therefore well within the bounds of reason.

The mkt cap is 91 mil, but the co had almost 11 mil of cash, which they are using to buy back stock (e.g. they bought back and will cancel 190,000 yesterday). The buyback underpins further SP growth, IMO.

Just got in at 201.5p, even on a T+25, so trading is currently well within spread of 200/202.

good easy to read chart on post 183 .... sp has just about hit 25 dma (+/-200 and rising) and this looks quite a good time to buy with 50 dma at about 190 and rising providing further support below.

Good comment re the 25 DMA, Cynic. A candlestick chart of today's progress ought to reveal a potential turning point for the SP too.

Both the TA and the fundamentals look good, so here's hoping that this one continues to soar.

(As usual, WDIK, PDYOR, etc.).

It's done what I hoped it would do, i.e. bouncing just below 200p.
Currently: CCT Bid: 200p Offer: 203p Change: 2.5 219K traded.

The shape of the chart over recent months gives me confidence that this ought to go a good bit higher on the back of the decent interims - I certainly hope that will be the case :o)

PDYOR, etc.

and up some more :o)

CCT Bid: 201p Offer: 205p Change: 4

Glad I came in to CTT yesterday! Thanks for your encouragement ST!

ST, are you in VIY? I ask because a similar bounce situation at 9.5p could be on the cards today. If you have time I'd be interested in what do you think (I bought in at 9.29 earlier when the sells seemed to be drying up, in anticipation/hope of this scenario).

Cheers Madison

hi Madison. Good to hear from you - but it's probably best to thank me for the encouragement on CCT when you've bagged a tidy profit ;o)

Thanks for the heads-up on VIY. I'm not in, and on reading the RNS headlines would be a little bit hesitant about short-term trading it as they have no profits at the moment. Will think about it as a buy-and-hold.

Hi ST,

I agree VIY is highly speculative. Don't worry, I'm not selling my TESCO shares to fund them! Cheers, Madison.

the chart now looks truly horrid though for the life of me i cannot see why this sudden tumble from grace ..... no significant volume, no rns and rsi is in well o'sold territory ...... were it not for the crashing price, i might be tempted to buy, but there is rarely no reason for this sort of pull back (almost a collapse)

Cynic, FWIW, I have C&P'd my thoughts from Skreen's CCT thread, which I am sure you have seen, below.

I wonder if somebody started dumping stock and has managed to trigger a clutch of stop-losses which has snowballed. Interestingly, it's only down 3.5p at the close (CCT Bid: 165p Offer: 167p Change: -3.5), so it's off the day's low.

Worth watching?
***

Skreen, I'd like to believe, you, but today the SP has actually fallen out of the Bolli Band. I'm not an expert chartist, but surely that's a negative sign rather than a positive. Maybe if the SP started to climb and looked like it was getting back into the band.

Do you know why the SP has dropped almost 20% in a week? (Other than the obvious fact that somebody decided to dump a large holding). I can't see any RNS that would explain the issue.

FYI: a chart showing what's going on!




FWIW chart support seems to be at 130p, or a stronger resistance level may be found at 120p.

You're right about the PE of 10 - Charles Stanley forecasts EPS of 16.35p for FY to end Feb 2008, although the forecast for 2008/2009 of 17.92p, i.e. EPS growth of only 10%, suggests limited earnings visibility ahead (not surprising, given that we're talking about toys here!).

I thought CCT was worth more when it was priced at 200p. Personally I'd want to see the SP begin to recover before getting involved.

All IMO, PDYOR.

Recovery came with a bang yesterday (up 11), and it's up again today!

CCT Bid: 183p Offer: 186p Change: 7.5

Whoever dumped some stock (presumably with good profit) with subsequent sp fall also contributed to triggered stops and some panic sells to lock in profit. Good to see the bounce back. CCT is exactly the kind of stock to be in at the moment, delivering good profits and continued growth. PE ratio is low compared with peers in sector. Good buying opportunity this week IMO. Price target 250p so well done to those grabbing stock <180p.

I assume the fall is in part related to the poor results from Hornby.

However I believe this is a totally different business, and the share buybacks just keep adding to the value here, plus the new BBC deal, its all good news.

i too am puzzled by CCT's recent grim performance .... however, i see no good reason to invest there either at the moment, for it is far from impossible that 200 dma will be tested at about 150

Read an article last week re:Dr Who range, going very well which bodes well for FY results as well as next year.

Nice write up for CCT on TMF

http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=10669997


.

The Character Group - Half Year Results

click here