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A couple of months ago, I was very downbeat (again) about the prospects for the shares of DFS Furniture (DFS) even with it describing itself as “the market leading retailer of living room and upholstered furniture in the United Kingdom”. Whilst the shares have nearly halved over the last year, as a bunch of people have realised they either cannot afford a new sofa and/or have better things to be doing with their money, the stock has pushed up over the last couple of months. What is going on?

NEWSFLOW

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I am technically a customer of “Your Sofa & Furniture Experts”, DFS Furniture (DFS). I say technically as, whilst we did purchase the lounge sofas from the company, it was about twenty years ago and even the DFS future sales department has (sensibly) lost interest in me. After all, the sofas are still good quality and it is not as if we use them that much. However, I do follow the company’s corporate updates and share price as it provides a good insight into the thinking of the average consumer. And this brings us nicely to today’s “trading update and AGM statement” from the company.

NEWSFLOW

NEWSFLOW

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Describing itself as “the UK's leading retailer of living room furniture”, DFS (DFS) has issued a trading statement including that it has “increased our weekly production and delivered revenues progressively over Half 2, to record levels in the fourth quarter… expect to close the financial year with an order bank that is elevated by c. £30m or c. 2.5% of annual revenues relative to pre-pandemic levels… The group remains in a strong financial position with significant available headroom under our £215m bank facility”. So what of a current share price response to below 165p, 11% down!?

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I was a little bit worried this morning, not because it was the Ides of March or anything like that but about how the Imperial Brands (IMB) share price might react to its announced observation of a “financial impact of an exit from Russia and the previously announced suspension of operations in Ukraine on our full-year guidance for FY22”.

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NEWSFLOW