Updates

Marks & Spencer - Beats forecasts

November 2009

Investing in shares may lose you all or some of your money. Past performance is no indication of future performance. Some of the shares recommended here may be small company shares, which can be relatively illiquid and hard to trade and this makes such shares more risky than other investments.

Shares in Marks & Spencer have been strong in the past month and this has been justified by a trading update that was better than analysts expected. For the 13 weeks to 26 September total sales rose 2.7% and within that UK like-for-like sales fell just 0.5%, with general merchandise up 2.2% and food rising 1.7%. Within general merchandise, clothing rose 2.7% and retained the same market share as before, with the resilience helped by the launch of Indigo, the new women's casual range.Thanks to better stock control, sourcing and supply chain management, the group expects full year gross margin to be 0.5% to 1% lower (rather than the 1.25%-1.75% forecast by analysts). Also adding to the more upbeat tone, chairman Sir Stuart Rose ...

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With small companies there is an above average degree of risk compared to buying blue chips. Please be aware that we have not assessed the suitability of any of these investments for you. The newsletter simply states a personal view and diarises the editor’s investment decisions. Please speak to your stockbroker or other qualified individual to ascertain whether any of these companies mentioned would form useful additions to your own portfolios. Past performance is no indication of future success.

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