anything under 7 cheap cheap cheap. good div. just paid. chart looks sick

On 9/1/2008 Rose bought further 250,000 shares @ 410.66p increasing stake to 750,416 shares. Lord Burns(ch) bought 24,316 shs, which doubles his stake and Steve Esom and Carl Lever made maiden purchases spending 100,000 and 73,595 respectively.

Wow! Management buy out coming?!!

Have to go short of M&S as Mr Rose can no longer afford to provide me with a plastic bag to put his plastic covered foodstuffs in. They must be really hard up if they have to charge customers 5p for a bag which was previously provided free of charge!

Plastic bags are a luxury nowadays.

Marks & Spencer Group, the fashion and food retailer, today reported a better than expected 7.9% increase in underlying full year pretax profit, achieving the symbolic 1bn mark., while lifting its dividend 23% to 22.5p per share.

But the group said it expected market conditions to 'remain difficult for the foreseeable future' and reported 'mixed' trading in the first seven weeks of its new financial year.

It said April was 'a difficult month', reflecting dramatically different weather patterns compared with the same period last year. May to date has shown 'a marked improvement'.

For the year to March 29th 2008 M&S made an underlying pretax profit of 1.007bn. This compares to analysts' consensus forecast of 989m and 965m achieved in the previous year.

Sales increased 5.1% to 9.02bn.

The dividend was up 23% to 22.5p.


sp 417p

Sector certainly having a rough ride and things will get even choppier over the next year. At least the dividend is up which will please the longer term holders.
Eyes will be on further overseas expansion.

Hope things gets better soon, and shares go high again to enable me to sell it.

3.80 sooon

good strong well managed company but in a week market. Can not see them advancing much at the moment given the economic situation. Food should continue to do well with more people eating in, instead of going to restuarants. Looking to increasing overseas earnings via joints ventures.

doubt it.....people r spending less in shops....and ms is expensive for food ......i dont go as much as i used compared to last year so they must be losing at least 20 quid a week from me......yes it aint much but if a lot of people like me are doing it, then ms need to do things to bring people like me to spend money for food again.

Word on the street is that frozen food, Lidl and Aldi are in vogue

i saw that on business lunch yesterday.....they have got 5 or 6% of food market which is worry to tesco, sainsbury etc, lol as they been backing labour party in last decade.

i hate tesco domineering every small town in this country with lories bombing up and down the motorway continuously

The Guardian says that growing your own veg. is the new rock'n roll also, though I have found that the slugs and snails get most of the benefits, a bit like brokers!

i remember rose buying early in year at 4 quid and saying he didnt believe in doom and gloom.....well its hoing to get worse....maybe cos he's cosying up to gordon brown in his committee thing, he's gone political

breaking news bloomberg retail sales soar

I would say M&S is a sell at 340p.

I think you are right, it is still going down, where do you think it might stop.

AGM "may stop the slide" - - the worry is (IMHO) the 'Dual-Role' issue with Stuart Rose . . . . sure he's "capable" - but that's not the point, it's only a short walk to anarchy..... and I think this is the root problem.
[[However read ScotInvestor 18 June (politics)]]....I hold a few but may buy-in if it gets really cheap - but not yet awhile as I think no-one is likely to bid - and Retail is unlikely to improve at least until Interest-rates/Wages/Mortgages are no-longer a worry. Dark days ahead I fear.

yes, m&s is going down for next 12 months......end of 2009 and we might be turning around in country economically....but no guarantee...and certainly not under this incompetent government whose misuse of OUR money has been nothing short of criminal.....uk is knackered and no-one it seems is going to stop us slide into the abyss......2 more years of labour dragging us into the gutter. oh, and stop blaming it on international stuff......housing foasco was political driven and this is 1st gov to do this.....and i'm sure cos mrs.t revolutionised people into having shares...and that lab cabinet cant have shares....so they buy houses instead...like john reid who puts it into his non dom brazilian wife and pays no tax....what a great socialist!!! NOT.

AT LEAST STALIN was a true socialist....i'd rather have him than blair, brown or any other weak pathetic labour plebs

Growing your own veg could be a good idea if it were not for they security you have to provide.

Allotment owners are having to improve security for their veg to stop it getting nicked

saving is at lowest in banks since 1959.....in fact saving under labour is at 0%....this is serious stuff and shows that uk is knackered.

petrol is getting nicked, copper stuff, drains etc getting nicked.....crime soars when most people have little to survive....yes, survive.

5.4 million pensioners and cildren in poverty alone.....and 4.8 million claim benefits and unemployment nearing 2 million.

i reckon at least 12 million are in poverty and probably 15 to 20 million are in poverty......just read that 350 australian bankers in london have left uk as they are fed up looking at the poverty in uk, lol