LET'S HAVE SOME FUN

John B

I have been watching WLW since the last Apax bid when it dropped to 35p. All summer long you could have made good money buying at 35p selling at 37p. The last sales figures sent the price down to the low 30's and so I guessed the Christmas period we would see a rise as retailers tried to talk it up! The SP rose and we also saw the potential bid stories breaking. Any bidder will have the same problems as Apex which means the highest we could go is around 55p. I personally doubt these stories.

I seem to remember that WLW only own their stores in the channel islands? Looking in the shops before Christmas WLW were clearly not doing as well as WHSmith. Margins are all under severe pressure. With yesterdays press reports of shopping centres being busy in the sales the price rose to 39p.

My reading is WLW had a poor Christmas. The sales are dire as the weather is stopping shoppers coming out except to the shopping centrees such as Bluewater. WLW are not in these places generally so have not grabbed those extra sales. I therefore shorted at 39p had a chance to make it £50/point before the end of day and look to see it drop as WLW is traditionally one of the first to report figures.

Sorry its not what you want to hear. I may lose if a bid appears though I have a stop loss in place so my losses will be minimal. As I say just a small punt but one I feel will work for me. Another pointer was that most of the trades yesterday were sells.