I suspect trading tomorrow will probably answer this conundrum, but I know there are some far wiser owls than me that contribute to this bb & I would be interested in their opinions.

My question is this: the chart below looks to me like a pullback of the uptrend (ie when it went north through 14.00) however I am unsure as it has now broken down through 14.00 whether this is trending up or down :-(

So what do you think - up or down, or should I just flip a coin :-)) ?

mitzy whats your TP?

Around 50p at a guess.

repeating itself today...........................

‘Don't be short of Man Group’ (0.1p dearer at 85.45p) was the shout in dealing rooms amid revived whispers that its independence could soon be threatened.

The underperforming hedge fund giant has often been touted as a potential takeover target and rumours were rife on Thursday that a sizeable stake could be about to change hands.

Dealers heard whispers that Julius Baer, the Swiss private banking group, had approached Pierre Lagrange, the former Goldman Sachs trader who subsequently co-founded the GLG hedge fund, to name a price for his 3.56 per cent stake. Should he sell, cash-rich JB would then proceed with a cash bid for the rest of Man’s equity at a substantial premium to the current price.

Lagrange hit the headlines earlier this year when he is said to have agreed on a £160million settlement following his amicable divorce from his wife Catherine, herself a generous Conservative party donor. Lagrange apparently sold his £90million house in Kensington Palace Gardens to Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich to help pay for the settlement.

Man Group remains vulnerable. Its overall performance continues to be held hostage to the fortunes of its troublesome flagship fund, AHL. Word is that the fund, which uses computer algorithms to make investment decisions, has been performing much better of late along with stock markets both at home and abroad.

Thursday is q3 interim this week &.....today.................

UBS added hedge fund group Man Group (LON:EMG) to its most preferred list of financial stocks on Tuesday, give the shares a 6% leg-up.

http://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/columns/broker-spotlight/14366/broker-round-up-dial-in-to-bt-shares-14366.html

StockMarketWire.com
Man Group's funds under management rose to $52.5bn at the end of September - up from $52.0bn at the end of June.

Net inflows of $0.7bn in the quarter were driven by institutional flows into discretionary alternatives and long only strategies.

Chief executive Manny Roman said: "Inflows were linked primarily to stronger performance in the first half of the year and were characterised by sizeable asset flows from certain customers, albeit into relatively low margin products.

"The equity rally in July, followed by a sell-off in August, and volatility in financial markets in September provided challenging market conditions for hedge funds, and in particular CTAs. As a result performance in the majority of the AHL and FRM strategies was negative in the quarter, although performance at GLG overall was positive."

After yesterday good figures and good rise on the share price, is following yesterday's movement up

Certainly looks that way.

DIRECTOR PAID TOP PRICE TODAY FOR 50k @ 86.95p ..............

This notification relates to transactions to be notified in accordance with DTR 3.1.4R (1)(a)

On 18(th) October 2013 Mr Andrew Horton, a non-executive director of the Company, acquired 50,000 shares of 3 (3/7) US cents each in Man Group plc at a price of 86.95 pence per share.

Man Group plc was informed of the transaction on the same day.

StockMarketWire.com
Exane BNP Paribas has upgraded its recommendation on alternative investment management business Man Group (LON:EMG) to "neutral" from "underperform" after the recent third-quarter interim management statement highlighted a second consecutive quarter of positive net new money. The broker said: Our previous price target and recommendation were based on an assumption of ongoing groupwide net redemptions, and we no longer believe this is valid; we have therefore increased our 2013e EPS estimate by 33% and raised our price target (based on 12m forward EPS) from 76p to 88p.
Separately, Bank of America Merrill Lynch has repeated its "neutral" stock rating and 98 pence per share price target in a note to clients, today.

Broke 91.80p today again but did not managed the 92p twice now

Could easily be the top for the moment being as the 200 day MA looks like a resistance so far

Holding around support for the last couple days
time to keep a close eye again

...... and get some at this levels 83p, by the look of it soon ready to move forward.

Not only is on support but the retracement was a fibonacci 61.8%

the turnaround has been stablished now on reaching today 86p, with the next short term target of 92p then 95p and by then the top is pretty high from this point

Colonel Grim has a lovely phrase across the road on the merits of owning this stock. "It's like being tied to a cows tale and constantly being shat on" :O)

Thank you Mr Carson :@)

Pleasure mate. It could be worse, the agony of being an Evertonian this morning comes close :O) Thank God I now live in Aberdeen.

From FT
"Man Group is stepping up its search to acquire another asset management business in a bid to diversify revenues away from its $12.5bn flagship managed futures fund AHL.
Man, which merged with rival GLG Partners in 2010, has $550m of surplus capital sitting on its balance sheet and, according to people familiar with its plans, will return that money to shareholders if it does not find the right acquisition target. The capital surplus is excess cash Man has sitting on its balance above and beyond what the group is required by the regulator to hold as a buffer."

RESULTS FOR THE FINANCIAL YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2013

Key points
· Funds under management (FUM) down 5% to $54.1 billion (31 December 2012: $57.0 billion), FUM excluding guaranteed products up 1% to $51.8 billion (2012: $51.3 billion)
o Gross sales up 26% to $16.1 billion (2012: $12.8 billion)
o Redemptions down 2% to $19.7 billion (2012: $20.1 billion)
o Net outflows down 51% to $3.6 billion (2012: outflows of $7.3 billion), Q4 net inflows of $0.7 billion
o Investment movement of $4.3 billion (2012: $1.3 billion)
o FX translation effects and other movements of -$3.6 billion (2012: -$3.7 billion)
· Adjusted profit before tax (PBT) up 8% to $297 million in 2013 (2012: $275 million)
o Adjusted net management fee PBT down 20% to $175 million (2012: $220 million)
o Adjusted net performance fee PBT up 122% to $122 million (2012: $55 million)
· Statutory PBT for the year ended 31 December 2013 of $56 million (2012: $748 million loss)
· On track to deliver total cost savings of $270 million by the end of 2015
· Proposed final dividend of 5.3 cents per share bringing total dividend for the year to 7.9 cents
· Intention to repurchase $115 million of shares
· Surplus regulatory capital of $760 million at 31 December 2013, $550 million pro-forma for final dividend and share repurchase.

http://www.moneyam.com/action/news/showArticle?id=4762942

Merrill Lynch note:
"There were a number of positives in Man’s FY 13 results. Firstly, the earnings were well ahead of estimates. Secondly, flows beat our estimates. Thirdly, capital management was strong, with the company adding a $115m buyback to a full dividend. We don’t expect FY 14 numbers to change much, but the tone of these results is good.
EPS was a striking 38% ahead of our consensus-like estimates. There are a few components to this. Core revenues were in line (see the table overleaf for details), but performance fees were 36% ahead at $223m. GLG appears to be behind this. Overall costs were lower than our expectations, leading to PBT adjusted for exceptionals to be 30% ahead of our estimates. A lower than expected tax rate led to the 38% eps outperformance.
Welcome as this is, we think a lot of the outperformance is not repeatable. Cost savings have come through more quickly than the company had suggested but the overall cost reduction target hasn’t changed. Also, the tax rate is down to provisions from prior years being released. As a result, we don’t expect major changes to our numbers. AUM was 3% ahead of our estimates, with net sales of $700m (we were expecting $800m outflows). Star performers were GLG alternatives and long only. The European Long Short product and Japan Core Alpha were key here. Within quant, AHL Evolution sold well. Whilst this is a good performance, the outlook statement is cautious, and ELS seems near capacity. Overall, our expectations for FY 14 still strike us as realistic, with flows picking up throughout the year.
We think these numbers will be taken well. The company has done well to get costs down rapidly and the extra performance fees in H2 are welcome. The capital return should also support the share price. There remains plenty for the company to do – the US remains a tricky area, for instance, it seems – and we don’t expect massive changes to numbers, but H2 is a positive step, we think."

Exane note today:
"It may not be a wholly smooth ride from here on, but it now looks as if Man Group can be once more analysed as a viable operating company rather than a run-off situation. As well as a second consecutive quarter of positive net new money, with revenues in line with our estimates, the company is ahead of target on its cost reduction program. We had previously not been giving much credit for the cost cuts (our old forecasts had non-compensation expenses falling from $363m in 2013 to $255m in 2015e; our new numbers start from the outturn of $323m in 2013 FY and fall to $213m). It is this reduction in the operating costs, combined with the effect of the successful redemption of the debt and preference shares, which is driving our EPS upgrade of over 20% for 2014e and 2015e on an underlying basis.
New business is being driven by GLG Japan Pure Alpha, GLG European Equity Long/Short and AHL Evolution (between them, these accounted for 45% of gross sales). Management cautioned on the conference call that sales had been driven by “lumpy” single transactions, and so could be volatile going forward; set against this, the substantial investments made in distribution capacity in 2013 will begin to deliver in 2014e and 2015e. We continue to value Man Group on the assumption that GLG is an active franchise deserving a 14.5x multiple while the remainder of the group is a run-off deserving a 10x multiple; the EPS upgrades and rolling forward now deliver a valuation of 112p, so we set our price target at around 110p. We noted in October (“Stabilisation is better than decline”) that “half of AuM and 60% of management fees are coming from depreciating franchises”. This is no longer the case. As of FY13, GLG represented $30.1bn out of a total $54.1bn AuM; GLG plus the fund-of-funds business accounted for more than half of gross management fees. We have upgraded our recommendation to Outperform."