Not the most exciting share, but with safeway conversion now complete (and how much better the old safeway stores are now) the shares should start to come back. Already started a nice rise from a recent low. Costs for conversions will still hold the price back but when that is out of the way, should be be nice. 190p

Asda has done very well out of it's clothing brand. May be a good strategy.

Trouble is they are 20 years behind Tesco . Could they not come up with a better word for the clothing range then nutmeg. Are they going to compete with Associated British foods who have Primark ? Cannot see them pulling back market share
with this thought. Pulling in a ex Peacocks clothing director - hardly a high flyer. In our nearest Morrisons store they just do not seem to have the offers that the other big three have. They have started accepting other supermarkets voucher promotions,
that does not read good.

Tesco and Asda have accepted other supermarket vouchers for yonks so it's a positive move imo.

Are you short dreamcatcher ?

No Im 6ft :-)) Joking apart no Dil Iam not short. If it was good news I would treat it the same.


Analyst Kate Calvert said: "Recent market share data points to continued deterioration in sales trends and so a weak number is expected by the market next week". Morrison will be reporting on November 8th.

Seymour Pierce expects third-quarter (13 weeks to end of October) like-for-like (LFL) sales excluding petrol to be down 2%, compared with a lesser second-quarter LFL decline of 0.9%.

"The news that Morrison is accepting other retailers vouchers and aggressively couponing (£5 off £40 spend) also suggests trading remains under pressure," Calvert said. Meanwhile, she said that sales are unlikely to have been helped from the launch of Morrison's 'Fuel Saver' promotion on September 13th.

Calvert said: "Consequently pressure remains on forecasts and we expect further downgrades with this update. The recent share price underperformance has started to discount this to an extent and there is some support from the 4.4% dividend yield and on-going share buyback programme.

"However, we expect the shares to drift further given management may well have to invest margin to protect market share as we believe Christmas will be extremely aggressive, as Tesco can not afford to continue underperforming either and consumer spending is expected to remain subdued."

I would only love them to turn operations around, but having seen what happened to Tesco at the start of the year I fear for them. A supermarket cannot afford to fall behind in this age of such aggressive competition, if you want to give up the all important market share a competitor will wip it out of your hands. The figures will tell the story this week.

3rd Quarter Results

With consumer confidence still fragile and high levels of promotional activity a persistent feature of the market, the trading environment has remained challenging through the period and sales were lower than anticipated. In the quarter to 28 October 2012, total sales* excluding fuel were down by 0.4% (up 0.2% including fuel) and like for like sales* were down 2.1% (down 1.3% including fuel).

The business is making good progress in delivering the strategic initiatives which will provide a solid foundation for our future growth. During the period we have introduced our market leading Fresh Format into a further 35 stores and are on track to meet our target of extending this to 100 stores by the end of this fiscal year. We remain pleased with their progress both in terms of sales performance and customer feedback. Our Own Brand relaunch which will extend to 10,000 products is progressing well and we have made significant progress in the delivery of Evolve, our IT infrastructure project, with the introduction of the crucial supply chain management system. We have also launched Morrisons Cellar, our online wine operation.

Whilst we are encouraged by the progress of these strategic initiatives we recognise the ongoing importance of improving our performance, particularly in the communication of Morrisons key points of difference to our customers and in improving the effectiveness of our promotional activity. We have put in place a number of measures to enable us to achieve this.

We are well advanced on our programme to retire £1bn of equity over the two years to March 2013. To date we have acquired 299m shares at a total investment of £852m. The financial position of the Group remains strong.

Outlook

We expect the market to remain challenging for the remainder of the year. However we continue to manage the business tightly and anticipate that our full year financial performance will be broadly in line with our expectations.


*exc. VAT and reported in accordance with IFRIC 13

- ENDS-

Trading statement monday, don't think it's going to be good news... we'll see.,.

i was surprised to see the other day that Morrison's had taken over a very large Waitrose site on the Chippenham (Wiltshire) ring road

Analysts think No. 4 grocer Wm Morrison Supermarkets will, on Monday, post the worst of the Christmas figures out of the food retailers reporting next week.

Sales at Morrison stores open over a year, excluding fuel, were seen down about 2 percent. That would follow a fiscal third-quarter fall of 2.1 percent and partly reflect the lack of an online presence and minimal convenience store presence.

Indeed, the retail sector's best Christmas performers - all helped by a strong online presence - may have reported already.

Ant & Dec To Front Morrisons' TV Adverts

While the UK's flirtation with a triple-dip recession has cast a shadow over the sector for months and will do little to spark a marked upswing in consumer confidence, Morrison is being targeted in anticipation of weak sales.

Demand to borrow Morrisons stock to sell short over the last month was up 40 percent, Alex Brog at data firm Markit said. "It's not the most shorted in absolute terms, but the rise in the last month has been significant," adding 4.3 percent of the company's stock was out on loan.

.

Trading Statement

The environment over the Christmas period has continued to be challenging with hard pressed consumers increasingly shopping to a budget and vouchering a prominent feature of a highly promotional market. Against this backdrop and the increasing growth of other channels, we have sought to deliver a balance of top line performance and returns.

In the 6 weeks to 30 December total sales* excluding fuel were down by 0.9% (0.5% including fuel). Like for like sales* declined by 2.5% (2.2% including fuel).

Notwithstanding these difficult market conditions, which we expect to continue through 2013, our sales performance in the period was disappointing. This reflects both the need to improve our promotional innovation and the communication of our points of difference, as we highlighted in November, and the accelerating importance of other channels, such as online and convenience, which Morrisons has only recently entered. However we continued to maintain good availability and high standards of service throughout the seasonal peak, a reflection of the continuing strength of our supply chain and the commitment of our colleagues.

The Group's financial position remains strong and we expect full year net debt to be in the range of £2.1bn - £2.2bn. Our two year programme to retire £1 billion of equity, originally announced in March 2011, is well advanced. To date we have acquired 329m shares at a total investment of £931m.

DC - What's the situation re shorting of the stock, has it increased since your post 335 ? If so why the rise today, just lazy sorry curious.

There was 6.1% on loan as of the 6th Feb.

I think the interest is speculative as they hit 4+ year lows on Friday?

This reads interesting Chris -
may follow.

Gwynn fears Morrisons could bear the brunt of the discount drive given that it attracts bargain hunters.



http://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/columns/broker-spotlight/12063/broker-round-up-thomas-cook-tesco-morrisons-supergroup-barclays-12063.html

I'm afraid they are to far behind the times. Only just thinking of an internet delivery service. I can only see them going south. MVO. sorry

Thanks DC.

Morrisons’ shares saw a welcome rise yesterday as the timing of the horsemeat scandal with a new advertising campaign promoting its 100 per cent British beef credentials struck a chord with angry consumers.

The Bradford-based supermarket’s new campaign features TV presenters Ant and Dec showing how Morrisons can track its meat from farm to plate.

Yesterday the scandal escalated following revelations from a meat lorry driver about serious daily breaches of safety regulations.

The un-named driver said just two companies, Morrisons and Waitrose, had impressed him with the rigorous checks they make on every delivery.

Speaking to Sky News, the driver said: “I only shop and feed my kids food from Morrisons and Waitrose because I see how they operate.

“In fact it is a joke amongst the drivers that it is a pain to deliver to Morrisons because they check everything – it takes ages and they often turn stuff away if it isn’t up to scratch.”

Analyst Caroline Gulliver at Espirito Santo said: “We think consumer trust in processed value meat products has taken a knock and note Morrisons may benefit given its new advertising campaign starring Morrisons’ own butchers alongside Ant and Dec.”

on that basis, i'm surprised there's no follow through today ...... used to be a fan of MRW (as a share!), but have not held since the days of 300p ..... perhaps time to reconsider