UK 19:55 Saturday, 3 October 2026
Breaking news and expert analysis on fast-moving AIM and LSE listed shares
I read in the Sunday press that Saga (SAGA) - the holiday, insurance and more company focused on serving the needs of those aged 50 and over - is allegedly “sounding out buyers for its in-house insurance business in the hope of raising up to £90 million to pay down debt”. It definitely needs to be considering some options there as the last time I looked, its net debt to EBITDA ratio was a mere x8.5 times.
easyJet (EZJ) has announced results for its year ended 30th September 2022, including emphasising “achieved record headline EBITDAR in Q4 of £674 million” and “peak holiday weeks this winter, such as October half term and Christmas week in the UK, are back to normal levels of volume. Through these key periods, ticket yields are showing strength on the prior year, with the Christmas period's ticket yield currently up c. 18%”. Is this overall good news?
As I discussed just over a month ago, I have fallen out of love a bit with easyJet (EZJ) as a customer. However, I do still own some shares, which means I was all over today’s full year to the end of September 2022 numbers like a rash.
This company is somewhat bigger than the ones we usually cover, but it struck us as a relatively low risk trading buy and, although already well up from a below 300p tip price at approaching 350p, there looks some more to go. This follows a recent trading update from easyJet (EZJ) having emphasised continuing demand for its leading network alongside “step-changed” ancillary revenue and the rapid and profitable growth of the easyJet holidays business. The shares responded positively, but were above 400p as recently as August and above 700p earlier this year and, despite some clear challenges, we suggest that there is further recovery potential from here as we look to 29th November-scheduled results and beyond.
Shares in airlines have been hammered recently with concerns over demand during a cost of living crisis, as well as rising costs of running these businesses, but I’m not convinced that things are quite as bad as the markets seem to be factoring in.
Welcome to Friday and the ‘excitement’ (as the BBC put it) of a “wave of tax cuts expected from chancellor in bid to boost growth”. What fun awaits (not)! Meantime, what I have been busy with over the last couple of days is a couple of corporate seminars.
I hope you enjoyed a nice start to the week because - if you are an investment markets follower - it is going to get really busy. All good usual late July fun then. I guess I should start with easyJet (EZJ), a company I have become royally hacked off with ever since the cancellation of my flight back home with it in early July.
I haven't posted much these last few days - I've been abroad for the first time since January 2020. What excitement! I'm sure a bunch of you have been to Gibraltar, though I had not. I have two key tips. If, unlike me, you are visiting to explore lower taxation and other matters, do not discuss it in front of others having their breakfast. Second, you must ask yourself whether to fly with British Airways i.e. IAG (IAG) or EasyJet (EZJ). And - if you should prefer the former - whether or not you should hold EasyJet shares.
Maybe I will or maybe I won’t go on a plane this year as there are always plenty of other things to do in life. Based on number of historic trips, my favourite carrier remains easyJet (EZJ) but it is a good job I am not travelling with it today as “EasyJet cancels 100 flights due to Covid absences” – something I am sure all Easter travellers, across all airlines, are fully aware of. And this brings us to observations by its great peer and competitor Ryanair, which observed this morning that it “expects to report a pre-exceptional FY22 net loss of between -€350 million and -€400 million (previously guided range of -€250 million to -€450 million)”.
Did you have a good start to the year yesterday? I had one or two excitements but as I did not enter 2022 with either (1) a bunch of bond holdings and/or (2) a bunch of technology sector positions, it was a great start to the year.
An already widespread virus mutating to what is being seen clinically as “extremely mild cases”. Not bad news then… except in Airstrip One – and a resultant very negative stock market reaction. However government response madness is gradually being revealed and travel and leisure should resultantly gradually recover, though some share prices here remain depressed. Opportunity?...
The last day of a month always has a bit of market excitement, typically involving investors who fiddle around with their portfolio to ensure they are not too embarrassed when their end of the month portfolio is published. But there is more to think about this end of the month, with the headlines that the ‘Moderna chief predicts existing vaccines will struggle with Omicron’ having naturally induced a bit of (negative) excitements for the markets today. Hello the FTSE 100 lurking again at the c. 7,000 index point level. And then we also had the full year latest update from easyJet (EZJ)...
