Category — Retail Food

April 20th 2012 – Australasian Investment Review – (AIR)

Slowly, the shape of retailing is changing around the world.

More of the world’s biggest groups are abandoning the ‘big is best’ approach in favour of smaller stores, more savvy internet offerings and a slower rate of new store openings.

Saving money is the mantra (although not directly stated), improving weakened profit lines is another under-stated intention, and trying to keep and attract customers who have started using stores as showrooms for buying products on line is perhaps the overriding ambition.

Helping drive this change are government spending cuts and austerity measures (in the UK and France and other parts of Europe), political indecision and unease (the US) and consumers who have grown cautious as the world recovers from the GFC and have decided to save rather than spend (Australia, the US, Europe and elsewhere).

In the US in particular, credit rationing is still keeping consumer spending back, but saving is taking precedence, although car sales are rising much faster than in the rest of the retailing sector. [Read more →]

March 23rd 2012 – Australasian Investment Review – (AIR)

With the reports in the past week from Myer, David Jones, Kathmandu and OrotonGroup we know Australian retailing had a tough six months or so at the back end of 2011 and early this year, but has it been as tough as much of the reporting and commentary suggested?

Yesterday, in the wake of the poor reports from David Jones and Kathmandu, media reports talked about the dismal state of the Australian retail sector having been laid bare by those updates.

But is that the case?

Interim results from the retail sector this half year have not been uniformly bad or terrible, nor have they been overwhelmingly positive.

But they have ended for now the sharp rebound in retail stocks (David Jones up 15% till a week ago for the year for example, Kathmandu up 9%) that out ran the broader market.

The key ASX index for retailers, the Consumer Discretionary Index was up around 10% this year to its peak last Friday, before this week’s slide.

The broader market was up around 5.7% and much of the out performance happened as retailers started their reporting in early February. [Read more →]

Back in February, Kris alerted you to the idea of lazy investing. He said:

‘Let’s be honest. If you could find a way of making a lot of money without doing anything, odds are you’d jump at it.’

In the fast food sector, Kris reckoned he’d found ‘…three of the laziest – potentially – moneymaking stocks on the market.’

Since Domino’s Pizza Enterprises Ltd [ASX: DMP] announced a 23% increase in net profit, the pizza chain’s share price is up 14% in one month…

How many Aussie businesses have a share price that looks almost unaffected since the GFC? [Read more →]

March 2nd 2012 – Australasian Investment Review – (AIR)

As expected, Woolworths’ interim profit was hit by the $300 million charge to cover the cost of restructuring and selling the Dick Smith chain of consumer electrical stores, but the trading result wasn’t too hot either.

The results also confirmed that, as expected, the profit (and sales) growth in supermarkets and mid-market department store retailing is now firmly with Coles which is growing both at a faster rate than Woolies can currently manage.

Excluding one-off charges, Woolworths’ profit totalled $1.184 billion, up 3.2% from the $1.162 billion in the first six months to 2010-11.

Including the charge, after tax profit was down 17% to $966.9 million, $10 million better than the market forecast for a result around $956 million.

For the half, Woolies’ revenue rose 5% to $29.9 billion, as revealed with the release of the sales figures last month.

Woolies directors said it expect trading will remain subdued for the rest of its financial year and they reaffirmed the previous forecast for full year profit growth of 2% to 6%. [Read more →]

In today’s Money Morning:… the fast food sector worth investigating…a word of warning…analysing the Aussie dollar and share market…

How Your Lazy Neighbours Could Have Helped You Make a 29.5% Gain in 12 Months

Let’s be honest. If you could find a way of making a lot of money without doing anything, odds are you’d jump at it.

We’d all jump at it.

Unfortunately, opportunities to be lazy and still make money don’t come around too often.

But rather than try and make money the lazy way, what if there was a way for you to snag a regular income from other folks’ laziness? [Read more →]