Morrison W Supermarkets (#MRW) - H1 report, like for like sales down 2.7%
- 2015-09-09 23:29:09
UK 15:25 Wednesday, 7 October 2026
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It would appear that one of the major casualties of the deflationary scenario that we have at the moment in the UK is the way that the supermarkets have been struggling to survive on a fundamental basis. This crisis is reflected on the daily chart of Morrison.
From the FCA's spreadsheet of short positions required to be disclosed to it, the following details changes to net short positions in the last week (red if short increased, green if reduced)...
One of the biggest fallacies of this whole investment game is that a sensible individual investor cannot beat the professionals expensively employed in the City of London. As – I guess – a previous member of this latter club let me tell you a little secret: you can…and even in the trading in the largest of large companies out there. Believe me the debate on Tesco (TSCO) on this website was far better than in most ‘professional’ circles.
Thursday and the first part of Friday kind of went well for some of the shares I have discussed on these pages. Randgold Resources (RRS) proved again why it is really the only larger cap gold company to worry about. Rising production? Tick. Cash costs below US$700/ounce? Tick. Ungeared balance sheet? Tick. High reserve grade and exploration potential? Tick. It is good to see the shares back above the £40 level again – and I think they have much further to go. Gold shares are horribly out-of-favour but when you have a company with the above attributes and who only build and develop mines from the perspective of US$1000/ounce gold you have a buffer. Good news too that ebola has had no impact in the areas of Africa they are mining in. Buy any dip.
For quite a while, I believe that Morrisons (MRW) has lagged behind the competition in the supermarket sector. It’s been years behind Asda, Sainsbury’s (SBRY) and Tesco (TSCO) in terms of online shopping.
It would be fair to say an interim results statement from Morrisons (MRW) that reiterated their profit range and debt reduction hopes for the current financial year was not a consensus view amongst the (to quote a Chancellor of the Exchequer of yesteryear) ‘teenage scribblers’ that populate the professional analytical ranks of the City’s investment firms. Still, sentiment towards the company feels as low as it was when I first wrote on the stock a couple of months ago. The shares are certainly still kicking around the 170s.
Hello Share Swingers: Generally speaking, I hold no truck with silly supermarket shares. Firstly, they are boring. They go up a bit, the come down and then regain their old value. But they never seem to get anywhere.
At the start of the year a Morrisons’ (MRW) share was worth about 270p, whereas today you can own a stake in the UK’s fourth largest supermarket chain at a share price in the 170s. So much for supermarkets being defensive businesses, but is there any hope for this chain?
I confess: "When Harry Met Sally" remains my all time favourite romcom. In an early scene, no not THAT scene, Harry teases Sally over her lack of carnal experience. She defends herself, "I had great sex with Sheldon". Harry retorts..".A Sheldon can do your income taxes, if you need a root canal, Sheldon's your man."...Sheldon is not your man for passion.Which brings me to Morrisons...
Following on from this week's results, there are rumblings from Morrisons (MRW) in Bradford: range cuts are coming. This is serious and, if confirmed, mirrors Archie Norman's "Sauna" process of the mid 1990s at Asda.
If there was any doubt about the severity of the challenges facing Morrisons - yesterday’s quarterly figures from Kantar World Panel which showed a real-terms 5.1% decline on the same period last year, and this morning’s announced losses of £176m - nail them. Morrisons is in play.
I accept that the words “excitement” and “WM Morrison” (MRW) don’t usually go hand in hand. Even so, today I feel surprisingly exhilarated to have opened a position in the beleaguered supermarket chain. Despite the relative dreariness of WM Morrison’s business, this has the potential to be one my most exciting trades of the year, as I explain below.
Supermarket William Morrison (MRW) has underperformed the market by nearly 20% over a year and by 66% over 5 years. Below I explain why I believe it’s still a buy.
I can remember when William Morrison (MRW) was once the most fashionable share in the food retailing sector. Not only fashionable, but exotic too; an emergent hitherto unknown northern kind of retailer, that was culturally different; more direct and tougher than softer southern food retailers like the then Tesco and Sainsbury. In stock market terms it was a bit like one of the heroes from one of those gritty fifties novels set in the north like ‘This Sporting Life’ and the ‘Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner’.
