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Even a few of our detractors have now come around
All investors get plenty of stuff wrong, but the aim of the game is to get more stuff right. About nine months ago, I wrote about “888 Holdings plc (888), William Hill and mad deal excitement”. The former had a c. 250 pence share price at the time and today it is about a third of that level. Probably a good job that I concluded back then that “...I will generously call it one for the experts…and I am not one…Avoid”.
As I noted earlier in the month, J Sainsbury (SBRY) had an alright Christmas (aided by the purchase of a few seasonal specials by myself). Though, whilst I may be a regular customer, I do not own any shares in the name. But, judging by today’s news, is that a potential takeover mistake?
A year ago I bored you all by observing that Diageo (DGE) is the sort of pension fund holding that even a non-drinker such as myself can get excited about. My first bad day level was a sub thirty-five quid share price and we hit that a month or two later. And I note this morning, after the publication of its H1 numbers, that we have hit that level again.
My personal pension fund did alright last year, mainly because I had a decent amount of commodity and tobacco investments, the firm dollar helped more than hindered and when the world markets got volatile I embraced it rather than ran away into a load of cash. Obviously, as with every year as an actual investor, I bogged plenty of things up too. Back in early September, I said I was going to be “still leaving Associated British Foods (ABF) to the experts”. Initially that worked out alright as the 1400p share price it was became more like a 1200p one. By contrast, today though it is north of 1800p.
A couple of weeks ago I concluded that “Chocolate is a sweet treat but you still cannot say the same for Hotel Chocolat (HOTC) shares” HERE. Despite a big share price fall in 2022, the then c. two quid share price, after an early January hope romp, seemed bonkers to me. It is just over 220p now as, apparently, it had a great Christmas trading session.
I have pretty much had the same view on Deliveroo (ROO) shares since its comedy IPO in 2021: by all means have a Deliveroo delivery a couple of times a year, but don’t buy the shares! I last said that in August when the shares were just below a one quid price and, despite lower bond yields and better larger cap markets since, the stock is still about the same price today. And you will not be surprised to know that today’s update is still banging on about how the online food delivery company will be profitable…at some point later this decade!
