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

Only on Sunday afternoons Stan. :-))

Joking aside D/C I note that M&S have been on the rise of late.

Yes Stan. Could well be having to discount clothing to shift it.

True and personally retailers have not been my sector of choice for quite a wile now but still interesting to visit nevertheless.

LATEST BROKER VIEWS

Date Broker New target Recomm.
22 May Jefferies... 420.00 Buy

When is it going to reach £20 per share?

Could well be some consolidation in the retail sector over the next few years. Too many retailers with too much space (and hence high fixed costs).

There may be some logic in M&S merging with NEXT, having first floated off the food side as a separate company. Plenty of overlap between them and hence opportunities to rationalise and reduce costs.

Q - why on earth would NXT want to go anywhere near MKS?

Because they (NEXT) could run both businesses (brands) together, rationalise and improve overall profitability.

it might suit MKS, but as i said, i cannot see any appeal from NXT's perspective

Buy British, consumer spending will hold up, Barclays says
Mon, 22 May 2017
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Buy British, consumer spending will hold up, Barclays says
Lloyds Banking Group Quote more

Price: 72.25
Chg: 0.47
Chg %: 0.65%
Date: 11:25
FTSE 100 Quote
Price: 7,495.92 Chg: 25.21 Chg %: 0.34% Date: 11:25
(ShareCast News) - Domestically-focused UK stocks are unloved and underpriced, but unjustifiably so, analysts at Barclays Research believe, as they predict that recent outperformance by the group will run further.
In their opinion, valuations were factoring in a drop in UK consumer spend typical of a recession environment.

Indeed, they key to the economic outlook was still in the hands of the British consumer, they said.

However, inflation was set to peak in the third quarter of 2016 and survey data was pointing to wage acceleration, so consumer confidence should be well-supported from hereon, they said.

"Household savings rates, once adjusted for non-cash items, do not look alarming. Both consumer lending and household leverage statistics remain below the levels seen during the previous cycle," they explained.

So despite "significant" (and surprising) upgrades to estimates for companies' earnings per share after Brexit, the second tier FTSE 250 was "cheaply priced" relative to the Footsie.

UK General retail was discounting a 20-point drop in consumer confidence and UK banks, homebuilders and travel&leisure names also appeared to be cheaply priced, they said.

The same was true of real estate stocks, which "appear to be pricing in a 20% decline in book value, at a time when the IPD capital values index has started to tick higher."

Following on from the 'Buy British' theme of the research report, Barclays added WH Smith, M&S and Lloyds to its European recommended portfolio, while removing Almirall, PPB and SocGen.

Fair enough re the MKS appeal factor. However, traditional retailers are increasingly going to have their work cut out to compete with the virtual brigade.

Only down 1.97% surprised it's not more with all the doom mongering and negative broker sentiment. Nowhere near my Limit Buy (yet) :0)

Although sales remained steady, Marks & Spencer reported a 64% plunge in profits for the year to 1 April after taking a £437.4m hit mainly from changes to its pension scheme, international stores, and UK head office. Keeping the full year dividend at 18.7p, chief executive Steve Rowe outlined causes for optimism as the general merchandise arm' market share started to stabilise and the food business continued to grow like topsy.

The directors have proposed a final dividend in respect of the year
ended 1 April 2017 of 11.9p per share (last year 11.9p). The shares
will go ex-dividend on 1 June 2017.

They will not exist in 2/3 years, sadly old fossils on the board that have not moved with the times. Another company that has sat and watched sales go out the door. Poor clothes and expensive.

SP hasn't exactly bombed. Maybe investors hanging on for the divi a week today.

Profits were ahead of forecasts.

SP has been hammered, doom and gloom around retail sector. MKS reporting next Wednesday 8th. Any good news could ignite SP. Worth a punt long on the spreads even if it manages to climb back up to within lower bollinger band. Went long @ 328.90 tight stop.