JJB - cheap again - but for how long?

Happy New Year All. Hi Mad, it does sound that you suffered badly in missing out on those significant sp rises. My confidence would have been knocked for six as well. You're the second person this week to quote the 'leaving a little for the next man to me'. I remember about 10 years back I had returned from a few years in Hong Kong ready to start adding to my small property portfolio, with an initial 2 buy to let loans arranged based on my HK earnings. I needed to move quickly as they had just completed all their checks and as far as the lender was concerned I was still in my regular employment in HK. I quickly got 2 offers in, but as is my nature, I squeezed for the best possible deal. The result was that both deals fell through as I believe the penny dropped with the sellers that they were selling too cheap. By the time I had lined up more deals and was having these processed the point was reached where 3 months had passed since loan approval and proof of earnings was again requested. Had I paid 5% more on the first deals then things would have gone swiftly through - and the moral of the story is....

Anyway, back to JJB. We need more takeover speculation to sustain the price at current levels and possibly push it on a bit. I'm going to hold on a little longer and see what develops, but I believe we are in dangerous territory now as if this speculation comes to an end we could see a sharp 10-20% downward correction to put us back on a par with other retailers. Unless, of course, there has been some miracuouls stampede to JJB's doors during the Christmans/New Year trading period.