The “sell in May and go away” adage is based on the old premise that everyone of any consequence in the City would be spending the summer attending a series of sporting events.
The City is a bigger place these days and somehow manages to keep working even as a gaggle of hooray Henrys take days off here and there to attend Ascot, Henley and Wimbledon, et al, usually after popping in to a branch of Moss Bros Group plc (LON:MOSB) to hire a formal suit and top hat.
Judging by Moss Bros's trading statement at its annual general meeting today, the company is doing all right even before the summer season begins, with like-for-like (LFL) sales in the first 15 weeks of the financial year up 5% on a year earlier.
Like-for-like hire sales were up 4.7%, continuing the encouraging trend for 2016 bookings, the company said.
The clothes it hires out may look like they are from a different century – the 19th – but the company is moving with the times on the e-commerce front, with online sales up 9.7% on last year. Total e-commerce sales now comprise 10.7% of Total
Did someone mention Royal Ascot?
That leads us on to Ladbrokes PLC (LON:LAD), which was a hot stock this morning as the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) ruled that 350 to 400 betting shops may have to be sold if the proposed merger with bingo and betting shops operator Gala Coral is to go through.
The combined estate would be over 4,000 shops to this would hardly be a mortal blow to the group's presence on the high street.
Liberum, which is bearish on the stock, said the CMA's ruling was “a small positive” as the market had been expecting the watchdog to order the sale of 400 to 450 punting palaces.
Trouble at t'store
When the world's largest retailer by sales, Wal-Mart Stores Inc (NYSE:WMT) took over the company some of us still think of as Associated Dairies, i.e. Asda, the expectation in some circles was that the Yorkshire-based supermarket chain would sweep all before it in Britain.
It has not worked out quite that way and now it has the German hard discounters snapping at its heels. By 'eck, lad, it saw LFL sales fall 5.7% year-on-year in the first quarter, following on from a fourth quarter performance that saw Asda's biggest ever year-on-year sales fall.
Nonetheless, Wal-Mart's shares rose 9.6% yesterday as the US group's total sales were better than expected.
HSBC jobs to go in India
There has been heavier than usual interest in HSBC Holdings PLC (LON:HSBA) in cyberville, after the global bank announced plans to close half of its retail branches in India.
The shares were the fourth most widely traded this morning.
The Young Ones
On a well-known private investor company news site, the results of a share placing from GCP Student Living PLC (LON:DIGS) are attracting a lot of traffic, even though the share price has been less active than … well, a first year university student.
Gotta love that ticker symbol – DIGS – though.