Tesco is one of the worlds leading international retailers. Since the company first the trading name of Tesco, in the mid 1920s, the group has expanded into different formats, different markets and different sectors. The UKs leading retailer Tesco was floated on the stock exchange in 1947 and in 1995 took over rival Sainsburys position as the UK number one. The principal activity of the group is food retailing, with over 2,000 stores worldwide. Tesco has a long term strategy for growth, based on four key parts: growth in the Core UK business, to expand by growing internationally, to be as strong in non-food as in food and to follow customers into new retailing services. The company launched a home shopping service in 2000, allowing customers to order their shopping online. Tesco is now expanding its convenience stores and overseas into areas such as Taiwan, Malaysia, Poland, the US and Ireland.

Upper graph = 12 month share price with 6 month moving average
Lower graph = 12 month volume (red line = volume average).

must be over their sell by date!

Thanks Skinny and everyone. Now I understand :-0

Shore Capital Buy 375.58 - - Reiterates

Prime Markets Buy 371.53 389.00 389.00 Reiterates

Credit Suisse Outperform 371.53 430.00 430.00 Reiterates

Thanks Skinny for figures, bit more encouraging as I'm holding out for divi.
P.S. Are you really skinny?

Not as skinny as I was when the nickname was bestowed on me @50 years ago - but still relatively 'lean'!

I've put a stop in to take a minimum 12 points from an overnight short - a splash in the ocean compared to my SIPPed position however.

HL have their TSCO trades @35.99% sell /64.01% buy.

Barclays comment today:
"Our caution ahead of this set of numbers seems to have been justified, given that: 2H profits were c4.5% below expectations; sales trends deteriorated in Europe and Asia; significant write-downs were required on UK property and Eastern European goodwill; there is not a decisive outcome for the US; and that the new ROCE guidance is very broad. If we look for positives then we could say that UK margins were in line with Tesco’s guidance from a year ago – and that the company remains happy with a 5.2% margin going forwards. Six months ago this would probably have positively reassured the market, but we think that doubts on this guidance have been subsiding already. Tesco has said that it plans to spend 3.5-4.0% of sales on capex, which would represent a small decline from the c4.1% of sales spent in 2012/13. Overall, we would expect consensus earnings to fall by perhaps 3% today, with the share price likely to underperform the sector.
Key figure: FY12/13 trading profit came in at £3.453bn, compared with our expectation of £3.544bn and consensus of £3.530bn (note that the US is now being treated as discontinued). The UK was in line with expectations, (£2,272m vs Barc £2,275m) and implying a UK margin of 5.21%. Regionally, Asia was in line with consensus (£661m vs consensus £658m) but Europe was far weaker, coming in 15% below expectations (£329m vs Barclays £390m, consensus £406m) – ie close to a 30% miss for 2H.
Likely reaction, from a share price perspective: The share price reaction depends partly on the investor meeting but given that Tesco shares are up 15% year to date, outperforming the DJ Stoxx by 9% – and today’s results are overall disappointing, we would expect some pressure. Although it is good to see Tesco deliver the 5.2% UK margin – this was expected by the market – on the other hand performance in Europe is weak and results are also spoiled by a number of write downs (£500m for European goodwill, £100m for more PPI, £1.0bn for US (expected) and £800m for UK property).

Morgan Stanley summary:
"Overall, we view the UK food retail sector as unattractive, with the exception of Sainsbury which we rate as Overweight given its differentiated strategy. We rate both Tesco and Morrisons as Underweight."

does TSCO have any upside in the short term. we think not , looking for 330p.

All coming back to haunt Tesco. Well done Mr Leahy you cut them to the bone, no store investment. Take them into the states where very few if any retailers have succeeded . Then jump ship before the shi- hits the fan.

Take your pick :-

Citigroup Sell 0.00 245.00 285.00 Reiterates

Jefferies International Buy 0.00 440.00 440.00 Retains

Exane BNP Paribas Neutral 0.00 375.00 375.00 Reiterates

JP Morgan Cazenove Overweight 0.00 425.00 425.00 Reiterates

anyone else expecting more from this before it goes ex divi ?

Its ex divi today!

Explains the drop then

10.13p payable July 5th.

Hence I'm long 362

Anyone have any thought on Tesco ?

Yes but they're not printable! Looks like it's trading sideways atm. I'm hoping the gap around 378 will be filled.

Eventually!

lol - maggie