Those ‘teenage scribblers’, otherwise known as City analysts, really should know better by now.
For a week they’ve been telling us that Marks & Spencer sales were heading to the knacker’s yard with some of the dimmest among them advising executive chairman Sir Stuart Rose to “re-invest his margin” in more expensive goods.
But M&S announced today that its sales over the last 13 weeks were down 4.2 per cent compared to a 7.5 per cent fall in the previous 13 weeks, a pretty good performance when shoppers are shunning the high street.
Overall sales, including new stores, online and international, were up 1.9 per cent, which is very good news and the shares rose nearly nine per cent in early trading today.
Some big investors in the City, like pension funds and insurance companies, have been mounting a campaign to force Rose, who combines the jobs of chairman and chief executive, to split the roles in line with City guidance. Have they been telling the analysts, and hacks, that M&S sales were going through the floor?
The fact is that Rose is doing rather well by cutting prices as hard as he can and he’s clearly, at the moment, the best man for both jobs.
When he retires, which he will fairly soon, that’s the time to worry.