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).

sp 346p slipping away can't see where growth is going to come from.

I added @349 on the hope that most of the news was in the price after the 25th Sept.

Credit Suisse Outperform 351.10 430.00 430.00 Reiterates

Shore Capital Buy 351.10 - - Reiterates

Interesting to note the that CS have an under perform on SBRY.

Closed some @364.2.

Take your pick :-

Macquarie Outperform 358.00 400.00 390.00 Reiterates

Beaufort Securities Hold 358.00 - - Reiterates

Citigroup Neutral 358.00 285.00 350.00 Upgrades

Jefferies International Buy 358.00 440.00 440.00 Reiterates

Deutsche Bank Buy 358.00 415.00 405.00 Retains

JP Morgan Cazenove Underweight 358.00 350.00 335.00 Reiterates

Nomura Neutral 358.00 400.00 370.00 Reiterates

RSI ticking up & looking to close the gap.

Looks as though gap's been filled but will £3.75 be the stumbling block?

Not quite - lets hope it can before the market runs out of steam.

Sainsbury's takes price comparison spat with Tesco to high court

LONDON | Wed Oct 30, 2013 5:40am GMT
(Reuters) - Supermarket J Sainsbury will take its spat over price comparisons with Tesco to Britain's high court, challenging a ruling by the advertising watchdog in favour of its rival.

Britain's supermarkets are battling intensely for market share in tough economic conditions. Advertising is a major battleground.

Norges Bank > 6%

Not a happy day for Tesco. Currently down 2%
Obviously due to Asda stating that it will invest £1Bn over the next 5 years on lower prices. Even Sainsburys meteoric rise has been pulled back.
TT

Ouch - what a difference a couple of hours can make.

BoD needs to take drastic action.

Deutsche Bank Buy 356.15 356.15 405.00 405.00 Retains

And down again 1.9% after HSBC says "Underweight" from Neutral" although sainsburys is down as well and they have fallen 2.3%
Apart from the HSBC announcement can't see any reason for the fall.
Skinny, you'll know what the reason is!
TT
(;-))

I think this sort of press reporting isn't helping :-

Tesco boss faces flak over trading figures

And the fact that over the weekend, I had decided to sell some of my holding!

I started buying my custard tarts from Morrisons ,that would'nt help either !

As it's confession time, I boycotted this lot in the 70's as well... Sorry chaps -):

Q3 Interim Management Statement

THIRD QUARTER INTERIM MANAGEMENT STATEMENT

· Group sales growth of +0.6%
· UK sales growth of +0.9%
o Like-for-like sales decreased by (1.5)%, driven by a weaker grocery market
o Further progress towards Building a Better Tesco in the UK, including finest* re-launch, and 108 more stores upgraded as part of our continuing Refresh programme
o Multichannel focus delivering record online grocery orders and positive LFL in Express
· International conditions remain challenging, particularly in Thailand and Ireland; our businesses in Poland and Turkey are showing better trends

Philip Clarke - Chief Executive

"Continuing pressures on UK household finances have made the grocery market more challenging for everyone since the summer and our third quarter performance reflects this. The actions we have taken to position the business for the future - including the work currently underway to transform our general merchandise offer and our decision to significantly reduce the amount of new space we open - are also holding back our sales performance in the short-term.

Customers are continuing to respond positively to the changes we are making to the UK business to differentiate our offer and position Tesco as a multichannel leader. These include the re-launch of finest*, over 100 more store refreshes in the quarter and further investment into our fast-growing online grocery service.

Overseas, the near-term trading environment also remains tough, most notably in Thailand, but we have been able to drive a better performance in Poland and Turkey following the actions taken in the first half.

We are confident that our strategic priorities - strengthening the UK business, establishing multichannel leadership and ensuring capital discipline - are the right ones and that they will drive long-term value and returns."

Group sales

Group sales for the thirteen weeks ending 23 November 2013 increased by 0.6% at actual exchange rates and by 0.2% at constant rates, excluding petrol. Including petrol, Group sales decreased by (0.8)% at actual exchange rates and by (1.2)% at constant rates.

UK performance

Total sales in the UK, including VAT and excluding petrol, increased by 0.9%. Like-for-like sales, excluding both VAT and petrol, decreased by (1.5)% for the quarter. The change in performance from Q2 to Q3 is broadly in-line with the weaker growth seen in the UK grocery market as a whole. Consumers are still managing the effects of an unprecedented period of declining real incomes and a higher cost of living; the average spending power of a typical UK household is around 10% below its 2007 peak, in real terms.

Despite the challenging backdrop, our work to Build a Better Tesco for customers in the UK has continued - improving our core customer proposition and doing more to differentiate our offer from that of our competitors. As just some examples of this work, we successfully completed the re-launch of our finest* product range and we have individually tailored the range of each one of our 1,600 Express stores to the needs of their local areas. We refreshed over 1.8 million square feet of existing space in the quarter and recent sales uplifts are continuing to outperform average results for the programme to date.

We have also continued with our work to transform our general merchandise business. This has once again held back top-line growth but supported our trading margin, as we migrate from categories with a low level of profitability to more productive, sustainable categories such as Home, Cook & Dine, Papershop and Celebration.

Our work to position Tesco as the leading multichannel retailer remains a strategic priority. Alongside our continuing efforts to better position our large-store portfolio for the future, we have now rolled out one-hour grocery home delivery slots to over 98% of the UK population, we have more than 200 grocery Click & Collect drive-through locations in our stores and have also started a number of trials in non-store locations. Last week saw the official launch of our sixth grocery dotcom centre in Erith. Enhancing our multichannel and digital strategy, the customer response to the launch of our Hudl tablet has been very strong, with over 300,000 units sold to date. This is more than we had originally planned to sell in total in the run-up to Christmas. Hudl has also received critical acclaim as one of the best-value tablets on the market.

International performance

Total sales in Asia grew by 1.1% at actual exchange rates and by 0.5% at constant rates. Like-for-like sales in Asia declined by (5.1)%. The change versus the second quarter is driven by two factors. First, our Korean business - as expected - experienced a greater year-on-year impact from the regulatory restrictions on opening hours in the third quarter. Second, underlying improvements in the performance of our business in Thailand were more than offset by a tougher comparative, in addition to increasingly challenging conditions for consumers.

Total sales in Europe excluding petrol declined by (1.0)% at actual exchange rates and by (2.9)% at constant rates. Our like-for-like sales performance for the region as a whole improved slightly from the second quarter, at (4.0)%. In Ireland, our performance continues to reflect extremely challenging conditions for consumers, compounded by a more intense competitive environment. Our recent introduction of Price Promise in Ireland will help to improve customer perceptions of our relative price position, allowing us to emphasise points of differentiation in our offer. In Poland, following our decision to invest in our offer during the first half, our like-for-like sales performance has improved markedly, despite increased competitor activity. Turkey also saw an improved performance, with the business continuing to benefit from additional focus.

Tesco Bank

Sales at Tesco Bank increased by 0.9%, with an increase in interest income from strong lending growth offset by reduced fee income across our insurance business. We remain on track to complete our full range of banking products with the launch of current accounts in the first half of next year.

Outlook

Despite the challenging conditions in many of our markets, we are performing in line with market expectations* for the full year.

Credit Suisse Outperform 341.33 420.00 420.00 Reiterates

Skinny, I'd be quite happy if Tesco got to 420. It's just a pity that the rest of the analysts all think that it is overvalued and underperforming. Having been well in profit I am now in a slight loss but always intended this as a recovery play. If it falls a lot more then I'll add to my holding. It may be out of favour right now but I can't believe that will always be the case.
And, as for profits in my portfolio, "Every little counts"! (;-))

Yes - I agree :-)

CS yesterday, the rest today :-


Beaufort Securities Hold 335.70 - - Reiterates

Citigroup Neutral 335.70 350.00 330.00 Reiterates

JP Morgan Cazenove Underweight 335.70 315.00 315.00 Reiterates

Nomura Neutral 335.70 370.00 360.00 Reiterates

Deutsche Bank Buy 335.70 386.00 386.00 Retains