Next (NXT)

The amount of corporate news has been fairly limited since the Christmas break as investors await festive trading updates with some trepidation. So far Next (NXT) and Dunelm (DNLM) have been particularly well received by investors and Gear4Music (G4M:AIM) has been the biggest shocker. Homewares retailer Dunelm saw its shares soar on 7 January after reporting 9% growth in second quarter revenue ...

Next (NXT) £48.65 Gain to date: 16.1% Original entry price: Buy at £41.91, 20 December 2018 We are off to a flying start after last month flagging retailer Next (NXT) as one of top picks for 2019. The company reported robust festive trading in an update (3 Jan) which reignited market interest in the stock. Against very downbeat expectations and despite a difficult November, the ...

Clothing and homewares retailer Next (NXT) rallies 4.3% to £43.57 after reporting a surprise rise in Christmas sales, confounding fears over dire festive trading. The high street bellwether’s resilient Christmas showing is admirable given how bad November was for the sector. Shares in rivals Marks & Spencer (MKS), Primark-owner Associated British Foods (ABF), Debenhams (DEB), ASOS ...

High street fashion chain Next (NXT) gets the eagerly awaited Christmas reporting season underway as it reports festive sales as expected but still lowers full year guidance. The UK retail sector has been under a cloud for weeks with investors anticipating a gloomy run-in to Christmas as consumers flex their muscles over discounts and on line bargains. Yet Next has survived the worst of the ...

UK stocks start the year on the back foot with the FTSE 100 index falling 1.6% or 106 points to 6,622 giving up almost all of its post-Christmas gains. Every sector except Tobacco is in the red this morning with Banks, Industrial Engineers, Miners and Oils providing the biggest drag on the index. Best-performing stocks in the FTSE 100 are Imperial Brands (IMB) and retailers Next (NXT) and ...

In times of trouble a good strategy is to turn to companies which have a long history of generating solid returns. Coats very much fits the bill and its shares look great value trading on 12.2 times forecast earnings for 2019. Coats is a global market leader in the manufacture of threads, boasting a 20% market share. It is expected to grow profit by 7% next year and there is also a ...

We recognise retail is completely out of favour with investors and so are UK-domestic stocks. However, it feels the right time to take a contrarian view and look for opportunities in both these categories. We’ve picked Next in the belief that management can navigate the tricky backdrop and that we may also see a bounce in UK-focused businesses, assuming there is an agreed Brexit plan which ...

Every year the Shares team research the market to find investment ideas and create a portfolio of stocks to own for the year ahead. We draw up a long list and then debate the pros and cons as a team over several meetings and then narrow the list down to the cream of the crop. This year we’ve selected 10 stocks which look attractive for various reasons. We will regularly update readers on ...

Online fashion retailer ASOS (ASC:AIM) slumps 41% to £24.63 after issuing a festive shocker of a profit warning, cutting its annual sales growth and margin forecasts amid a fall in consumer confidence and a flurry of margin-crimping discounts. This earnings alert from the highly-rated web-based fashion wonder suggests trading is even worse than thought in the run-up to Christmas, with ...

The FTSE 100 is a bit lower this morning, down 0.2% to 6,832.58 on continuing uncertainties linked to global trade and Brexit. But there is only one place to start this morning and that is with the shockwaves being sent through the retail sector by a major profit warning from online fashion firm ASOS (ASC:AIM). Shares in the company plunge 37.8% to £26.02 as it reveals that for the current ...

Experts increasingly believe value investing will come back into fashion and Keystone Investment Trust (KIT) looks an excellent product to buy ahead of the anticipated trend switch. Don’t put be off by its past performance – the trust has fallen in value in the past year – as buying Keystone is a bet on the market looking for different things in 2019. Investing in growth ...

Volatility returned to equity markets during October and this recent market setback provides an opportunity to reappraise the merits of trusts that prioritise the avoidance of capital loss. Capital preservation funds are collectives with a strong track record of helping investors avoid large losses whilst growing their wealth too, albeit more slowly than adventurous, more risk-tolerant ...

In the Budget last week Chancellor Philip Hammond announced three measures to try to revive beleaguered UK high streets. The first is the creation of a £675m Future High Streets Fund to support and finance local areas’ plans to re-invigorate their high streets and town centres making them ‘fit for the future’. The second is a one-third cut in business rates for companies with a ...

High street fashion-to-homewares giant Next (NXT) cheapens 3.2% to £51.34, despite maintaining the full year sales and profit guidance given alongside half year results five weeks ago (25 Sep). Investors are fretting over a slowing of online sales and a slump in sales from brick and mortar stores in the third quarter to 27 October, with rival Marks & Spencer (MKS) marked down 1.1% to ...

For investors feeling a little jaded after a trying year for UK equities, Mark Barnett provides some welcome optimism for value hunters. The Invesco fund manager who runs both Perpetual Income & Growth Investment Trust (PLI) and Edinburgh Investment Trust (EDIN) sees plenty of opportunity in the UK stock market across both the large cap universe and their mid-cap peers. ‘It’s got to ...

Shares in QUIZ (QUIZ:AIM) have collapsed following a profit warning (5 Oct) that triggered sizeable earnings downgrades. Slipped out at 2.38 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, the fast fashion brand warned of a £1.5m first half EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) shortfall and materially downgraded full year sales and profit expectations. Glasgow-based QUIZ’s ...

Investors who have made a mint from Fundsmith Equity (B41YBW7) are now deciding whether to back a new fund from the same asset manager, to be called Smithson Investment Trust. The prospectus has shed some more light on the strategy and potential investments, meaning we now have a much better idea of the possible shape of the trust’s portfolio. Our conclusion from these bits of information ...

Shares in clothing-to-homewares colossus Next (NXT) rally 8.2% to £55.46 as the company raises its full year profit before tax (PBT) guidance by £10m to £727m. Last month, the high street stalwart left its year-to-January 2019 guidance unchanged, warning there was a risk sales banked in July could be pulled forward sales, boosted by the UK’s prolonged summer heatwave. This hasn’t proved ...

UK fashion retailer Next (NXT) has lifted its full year profit forecast by £10m to £727m after it saying that trading in August was better than expected. Shares in the FTSE 100 high street operator shot to the top of the FTSE 100 leader board in early trade on Tuesday after the company revealed ‘we did not experience any material loss of sales in August or early September.’ The shares ...

Firms operating in different industries have their own yardsticks for performance, beyond the usual metrics like pre-tax profit, revenue and cash flow. These key performance indicators or KPIs for short can help you spot positive or negative trends before they show up in the P&L or balance sheet. And having a handle on the key KPIs for specific sectors can help you decipher updates from ...