After a brief but notable shift higher, with the fashion firm hitting a 3 year-plus peak of £32.93 by mid-March, things have been pretty tough for Ted Baker.
Sparked by late-March’s full year results, the retailer has only recently been able to stop falling, with the nadir being a 4 and a half year intraday low of £20.49 in mid-August. Ted Baker (LON:TED) now sits at a current trading price of £23.98.
Its latest update came in mid-June and, though broadly positive, those first quarter figures were unable to reverse the company’s market decline. For the 19 weeks to 9th June 2018, group revenue rose 4.2% (7.5% in constant currency), with the retailer pointing out that this increase was achieved ‘despite the impact of unseasonal weather across Europe and the East Coast of America in the early part of the period’ and the ‘challenging’ external trading conditions seen around the globe.
Total retail sales themselves rose just 0.7% (3.6% in constant currency), with the highlight being a 33.6% surge in e-commerce, while wholesale sales jumped 14.2%. And with both retail and wholesale gross margins in line with forecasts, the company went on to state it ‘remains focused’ on delivering the Board’s expectations for the full year.
Having managed the ‘Beast from the East’ in Q1, it’ll be interesting to see how the European heatwave impacted its second quarter performance, and what kind of overall effect a half year full of wild weather has had on its interim report.
Ted Baker PLC has a consensus rating of ‘Buy’ alongside an average target price of £30.11.
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