Hi,
the first thread on GW's half-annual report got deleted by accident, the second one was closed due to off-topic talk.
But as these are busy and exciting times to watch the share market for GW shares, here a restart.
Here a graph of the recent development:
Today is another very busy day:
Up to now 121,143 shares sold (worth more than £ 600k or almost a million US$), then 2x25k shares bought for £131.25k each .
The big shuffling of shares continues.
I would appreciate a thread like this with a tight focus on GWs stock sticking around with regular updates. It would save me having to root around on yahoo finance every other day.
Clearly there's atypical action with the trading of GW shares.
I suspect a fair amount of the large drop is simply reduction in stockholding or jumping ship due to the dividends not being paid out.
Response to the lower profit and revenue figures would I think manifest as a more steady decline as we've seen since the major drop. I reckon that'll continue.
I don't think he needs to declare as a director's deal, and if I were in charge of GW sales I certainly wouldn't be betting on it given the progressive drops in revenue over the past few years.
I've been wondering this for a while, how many shares are there and what is the price of each?
If you add them all up together does that mean you get how much GW is worth? If someone were to buy every single share would that mean they would own the company and could do whatever they wanted with it?
MadCowCrazy wrote: I've been wondering this for a while, how many shares are there and what is the price of each?
If you add them all up together does that mean you get how much GW is worth? If someone were to buy every single share would that mean they would own the company and could do whatever they wanted with it?
Exactly right.
Just over 31m shares in circulation, giving a valuation of ~£160m. You'd need a lot more than that to buy them outright, as you'd drive the price up as you were purchasing them, and eventually (27% rings a bell?) have to make an offer to buy the whole shebang, and would have to offer over market value if you wanted people to actually sell you their stock.
You could probably pick up enough to make a big noise at the AGM and be listened to for around £20m I reckon. Or just hold tight and see what happens of the next set of financials are as nasty a shock to the market as these apparently were.
Spazz wrote: I'm pretty sure that you would only have to own 51% of the total stock to gain control of the company.
Correct, but there is a regulation that obliges you to try and buy the whole company once your stake reaches a certain percentage, you're not compelled to be successful, and if you gain 51% or more you will essentially control the organisation, but you must make the effort.
Spazz wrote: I'm pretty sure that you would only have to own 51% of the total stock to gain control of the company.
Correct, but there is a regulation that obliges you to try and buy the whole company once your stake reaches a certain percentage, you're not compelled to be successful, and if you gain 51% or more you will essentially control the organisation, but you must make the effort.
That sounds like a silly regulation. "Oops, I tried and failed."
Nah, there has to be a documented and public attempt. I'm not sure how easy it is to 'try' rather than really try, but it isn't something you can just breeze past.
I'll give you the only way not to improve it, but worse?
Having seen enough 'this is how I would fix GW' threads around here, I can imagine how that would go down. Well-intentioned, ultimately devastating changes to the company that put it out of a business in a year.
I'll give you the only way not to improve it, but worse?
Having seen enough 'this is how I would fix GW' threads around here, I can imagine how that would go down. Well-intentioned, ultimately devastating changes to the company that put it out of a business in a year.
Anyways, I'll let it go so we can stay on topic.
LOL That's exactly what I was saying on the other thread.
I'll give you the only way not to improve it, but worse?
Having seen enough 'this is how I would fix GW' threads around here, I can imagine how that would go down. Well-intentioned, ultimately devastating changes to the company that put it out of a business in a year.
Anyways, I'll let it go so we can stay on topic.
LOL That's exactly what I was saying on the other thread.
No mate, intentionally or not, what you were doing in the other thread was dismissing anyone's opinion if it wasn't yours and dismissing evidence if it didn't support your position.
I'm not saying everyone who ever posted an opinion about GW's business practices is some sort of business genius, but not every one is clueless either.
azreal13 wrote: Nah, there has to be a documented and public attempt. I'm not sure how easy it is to 'try' rather than really try, but it isn't something you can just breeze past.
if existing shareholders don't particularly feel like selling, it's easy to breeze past. Why, you ask? Well, the idea is that existing shareholders get an 'out' if they really, really distrust the new guy on the block; as long as they're (somewhat) comfortable holding on, you're fine; I believe you have to make a realistic offer, but certainly not particularly enticing (and not over actual market value as independently appraised, IIRC.)
Caveat: this might differ between jurisdictions somewhat and I'm a bit rusty on this topic myself
azreal13 wrote: No mate, intentionally or not, what you were doing in the other thread was dismissing anyone's opinion if it wasn't yours and dismissing evidence if it didn't support your position.
I'm not saying everyone who ever posted an opinion about GW's business practices is some sort of business genius, but not every one is clueless either.
Umm no. I kept pointing out that you guys were making logic leaps with your assessment of the company's earnings that someone who was even remotely familiar with a balance sheet/income statement wouldn't make. Things that I understood before even taking my first non-paid internship. For example... having to explain that interest rates impact stock prices isn't something that should be controversial. Nor should the idea that if we start to see the economy weaken, it will negatively impact retail. Yet I see it being argued.
azreal13 wrote: You'd need way more than £81m anyways, as the price would rocket as you started buying, especially if the idea was well known in advance.
I would guesstimate £105-120m when all was said and done.
You honestly think that 50% of the shareholders would be willing to give up their shares for only a 40% premium? That's around 735 a share... that's not even a 52 week high. Do you realize how foolish that sounds? Someone has to be on the other end willing to sell.
You are completely pulling numbers out of your butt and this is exactly why I am posting on these threads. It's completely delusional to think you could even acquire 10% of a company at a 40% premium when it is this illiquid. Even 25% ownership wouldn't get you any meaningful voting rights. And do it over kickstarter??
azreal13 wrote: No mate, intentionally or not, what you were doing in the other thread was dismissing anyone's opinion if it wasn't yours and dismissing evidence if it didn't support your position.
I'm not saying everyone who ever posted an opinion about GW's business practices is some sort of business genius, but not every one is clueless either.
Umm no. I kept pointing out that you guys were making logic leaps with your assessment of the company's earnings that someone who was even remotely familiar with a balance sheet/income statement wouldn't make. Things that I understood before even taking my first non-paid internship. For example... having to explain that interest rates impact stock prices isn't something that should be controversial. Nor should the idea that if we start to see the economy weaken, it will negatively impact retail. Yet I see it being argued.
And yet you are forgetting to account the decrease in sales, the decrease in profits and especially the lack of dividends in your explanations of why the stock plummeted and are instead hand waving it all away as a result of a weakening economy. And you still haven't explained how that same weakening economy (that actually isn't weakening, all economic indicators in Europe are rising), doesn't also have the same impact on GW's main competitors, on KS or even on the tabletop gaming industry at large since all of those have reported growth...
At this point I wouldn't trust you to manage my sons allowance, let alone any type of investment fund.
PhantomViper wrote: And yet you are forgetting to account the decrease in sales, the decrease in profits and especially the lack of dividends in your explanations of why the stock plummeted and are instead hand waving it all away as a result of a weakening economy. And you still haven't explained how that same weakening economy (that actually isn't weakening, all economic indicators in Europe are rising), doesn't also have the same impact on GW's main competitors, on KS or even on the tabletop gaming industry at large since all of those have reported growth...
At this point I wouldn't trust you to manage my sons allowance, let alone any type of investment fund.
I'm giving reasons for the sales slump that actually go inline with the numbers we are seeing. It's not something unique to GW and I have no idea where you are getting the idea Europe is improving. You guys are having bank failures and bailouts left and right. Oh the government numbers right... We will see how long this charade lasts.
I did and was pretty vocal about it. back on my old screen name (derekatkinson) I posted about buying gold in 2006 here on dakka and before that oil price in around 04.. I even said back in 06 that i thought the economy was in trouble. Took a year for it to finally start to roll over but when it did, it wiped out many people. What landed me my current job was calling the gold move correctly along with the real estate bubble and the banking crisis we had in the states. I'm not a novice and I have a public track record to prove it. I'm not perma bull or perma bear in anything. When things get to an extreme, I place my bets. I don't care if i'm too early and look like fool at that time.
PhantomViper wrote: And yet you are forgetting to account the decrease in sales, the decrease in profits and especially the lack of dividends in your explanations of why the stock plummeted and are instead hand waving it all away as a result of a weakening economy. And you still haven't explained how that same weakening economy (that actually isn't weakening, all economic indicators in Europe are rising), doesn't also have the same impact on GW's main competitors, on KS or even on the tabletop gaming industry at large since all of those have reported growth...
At this point I wouldn't trust you to manage my sons allowance, let alone any type of investment fund.
I'm giving reasons for the sales slump that actually go inline with the numbers we are seeing. It's not something unique to GW and I have no idea where you are getting the idea Europe is improving. You guys are having bank failures and bailouts left and right. Oh the government numbers right... We will see how long this charade lasts.
Not that I've noticed. Spain and Greece have had further problems and have needed assistance, but we've not had any bank failures lately and luxury spending is starting to increase again. We're by no stretch of the imagination back to pre-recession levels, but by all accounts all of GW's direct competition is doing pretty well, and we're in the middle of a gaming renaissance, so the problem isn't the market. Of course GW is the only one with the huge retail network, so a shift from retail->online sales would hurt them more but we're also seeing that the growth in online and indy retailers isn't coming from GW (reflected in GW's summary - sales from indies are down), and that less people are playing GW games (reflected by GW's sales decline).
To say GW is fine is disingenuous at best. They aren't completely doomed, but they've clearly got problems.
Not that I've noticed. Spain and Greece have had further problems and have needed assistance, but we've not had any bank failures lately and luxury spending is starting to increase again. We're by no stretch of the imagination back to pre-recession levels, but by all accounts all of GW's direct competition is doing pretty well, and we're in the middle of a gaming renaissance, so the problem isn't the market. Of course GW is the only one with the huge retail network, so a shift from retail->online sales would hurt them more but we're also seeing that the growth in online and indy retailers isn't coming from GW (reflected in GW's summary - sales from indies are down), and that less people are playing GW games (reflected by GW's sales decline).
To say GW is fine is disingenuous at best. They aren't completely doomed, but they've clearly got problems.
I didn't say that they were fine. The discussion was about their stock price and I think it's moving for other reasons.
PhantomViper wrote: And yet you are forgetting to account the decrease in sales, the decrease in profits and especially the lack of dividends in your explanations of why the stock plummeted and are instead hand waving it all away as a result of a weakening economy. And you still haven't explained how that same weakening economy (that actually isn't weakening, all economic indicators in Europe are rising), doesn't also have the same impact on GW's main competitors, on KS or even on the tabletop gaming industry at large since all of those have reported growth...
At this point I wouldn't trust you to manage my sons allowance, let alone any type of investment fund.
I'm giving reasons for the sales slump that actually go inline with the numbers we are seeing. It's not something unique to GW and I have no idea where you are getting the idea Europe is improving. You guys are having bank failures and bailouts left and right. Oh the government numbers right... We will see how long this charade lasts.
Not that I've noticed. Spain and Greece have had further problems and have needed assistance, but we've not had any bank failures lately and luxury spending is starting to increase again. We're by no stretch of the imagination back to pre-recession levels, but by all accounts all of GW's direct competition is doing pretty well, and we're in the middle of a gaming renaissance, so the problem isn't the market. Of course GW is the only one with the huge retail network, so a shift from retail->online sales would hurt them more but we're also seeing that the growth in online and indy retailers isn't coming from GW (reflected in GW's summary - sales from indies are down), and that less people are playing GW games (reflected by GW's sales decline).
To say GW is fine is disingenuous at best. They aren't completely doomed, but they've clearly got problems.
Yet GW are making a massive fanfare about their new store model, and how they're going to keep investing in it, despite citing the changeover as the (only) underlying reason for the drop off.
pretre wrote: Are we keeping track of how many times GW share price threads are being dragged off topic yet? We should have a scoreboard.
Well... the discussion is about why the stock dropped. Explained that retail in general isn't doing so hot and alot of retailers are closing stores, firing people etc. is staying on topic
Automatically Appended Next Post:
azreal13 wrote: Yet GW are making a massive fanfare about their new store model, and how they're going to keep investing in it, despite citing the changeover as the (only) underlying reason for the drop off.
Rings alarm bells all of its own.
Well.. it's a cost cutting measure. Lots of companies are cutting back on brick and mortar stores and keeping skeleton staffs.
In all honesty, having more employees at the store wouldn't be making a meaningful impact on sales so it makes sense. No sense in having a higher burn rate.
I think that depends on the store and the number of staff we're talking about. In a smaller store going from 3 to 4 employees might not make much difference, but going from 1-2 might.
With 1 staff member you have to make all sorts of customer unfriendly compromises:
* Stores need to shut for a lunch or toilet break. Disastrous if you've got people in the store at the time
* Stores need to shut at least twice a week
* Stores are often shut on sick days or holidays
* They can't do anything at all when a customer comes in. Disastrous if your customer interactions can be quite long (game/panting demo's, for instance).
** That means you have to stop the demo to deal with any other customers, and you can't get any shop work done when there are customers.
What GW is doing makes sense for short-interaction commodity stores like newsagents - customers are only taking a few seconds of your time, and even they tend to work in shifts or have a second member of staff back of house.
Herzlos wrote: I think that depends on the store and the number of staff we're talking about. In a smaller store going from 3 to 4 employees might not make much difference, but going from 1-2 might.
With 1 staff member you have to make all sorts of customer unfriendly compromises:
* Stores need to shut for a lunch or toilet break. Disastrous if you've got people in the store at the time
* Stores need to shut at least twice a week
* Stores are often shut on sick days or holidays
* They can't do anything at all when a customer comes in. Disastrous if your customer interactions can be quite long (game/panting demo's, for instance).
** That means you have to stop the demo to deal with any other customers, and you can't get any shop work done when there are customers.
What GW is doing makes sense for short-interaction commodity stores like newsagents - customers are only taking a few seconds of your time, and even they tend to work in shifts or have a second member of staff back of house.
Lots of good points there.
Personally I think GW need to do the opposite of what they are doing now, instead of 100 one man stores eating into their bottom line and trying to churn through new blood they should drop down 1 battle bunker with 4 or 5 staff so that it can be open every day and late thurdsay through saturday for gaming. Get a real community going around the store, lots of people in there everyday painting, playing and generally hanging around talking Warhammer.
MadCowCrazy wrote: I've been wondering this for a while, how many shares are there and what is the price of each?
If you add them all up together does that mean you get how much GW is worth? If someone were to buy every single share would that mean they would own the company and could do whatever they wanted with it?
Exactly right.
Just over 31m shares in circulation, giving a valuation of ~£160m. You'd need a lot more than that to buy them outright, as you'd drive the price up as you were purchasing them, and eventually (27% rings a bell?) have to make an offer to buy the whole shebang, and would have to offer over market value if you wanted people to actually sell you their stock.
You could probably pick up enough to make a big noise at the AGM and be listened to for around £20m I reckon. Or just hold tight and see what happens of the next set of financials are as nasty a shock to the market as these apparently were.
Or you buy 51% of the company and exert your control over management. If you have the majority interest in the company unless you're deliberately screwing the other shareholders out of money or freezing them in their investment then you could technically do what you want in terms of operations.
Spazz wrote: I'm pretty sure that you would only have to own 51% of the total stock to gain control of the company.
Correct, but there is a regulation that obliges you to try and buy the whole company once your stake reaches a certain percentage, you're not compelled to be successful, and if you gain 51% or more you will essentially control the organisation, but you must make the effort.
Not true the other owners would be listed on the financial statements as a minority interest. If you owned other ventures you would be required to consolidate the new company into your existing portfolio. Unless you were to delist from the exchange, then you may have to purchase the entire company.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Management at GW isn't poor, they have been able to go debt free and that is a very admirable thing. No debt allows them to take more risk. They don't have debt/ interest payments to plan for. The reason for the large drop in price is due to not paying dividends. They did not meet the expectations of their investors.
Spazz wrote: I'm pretty sure that you would only have to own 51% of the total stock to gain control of the company.
Correct, but there is a regulation that obliges you to try and buy the whole company once your stake reaches a certain percentage, you're not compelled to be successful, and if you gain 51% or more you will essentially control the organisation, but you must make the effort.
Not true the other owners would be listed on the financial statements as a minority interest. If you owned other ventures you would be required to consolidate the new company into your existing portfolio. Unless you were to delist from the exchange, then you may have to purchase the entire company.
I believe that would depend where the company is listed, if it is on the LSE then azrael is right.
When a person or group acquires interests in shares carrying 30% or more of the voting rights of a company, they must make a cash offer to all other shareholders at the highest price paid in the 12 months before the offer was announced (30% of the voting rights of a company is treated by the Code as the level at which effective control is obtained).
Well I guess UK differs from US law in that regard.
Management at GW isn't poor, they have been able to go debt free and that is a very admirable thing. No debt allows them to take more risk. They don't have debt/ interest payments to plan for. The reason for the large drop in price is due to not paying dividends. They did not meet the expectations of their investors.
That's true, now you need to look at why they didn't pay a dividend, and then you notice the substantial drop in revenue and profit with no real plausible reason offered to account for it, and no advance warning in the previous statement to suggest it was actually planned.
Spazz wrote: I'm pretty sure that you would only have to own 51% of the total stock to gain control of the company.
Correct, but there is a regulation that obliges you to try and buy the whole company once your stake reaches a certain percentage, you're not compelled to be successful, and if you gain 51% or more you will essentially control the organisation, but you must make the effort.
Not true the other owners would be listed on the financial statements as a minority interest. If you owned other ventures you would be required to consolidate the new company into your existing portfolio. Unless you were to delist from the exchange, then you may have to purchase the entire company.
I believe that would depend where the company is listed, if it is on the LSE then azrael is right.
If it's listed anywhere else then I have no idea.
GW are listed in the LSE, so they come under UK trading laws and financial regs.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Management at GW isn't poor, they have been able to go debt free and that is a very admirable thing. No debt allows them to take more risk. They don't have debt/ interest payments to plan for. The reason for the large drop in price is due to not paying dividends. They did not meet the expectations of their investors.
Except that GW doesn't really take many risks. Kirby is incredibly risk adverse to the point if stagnating the company.
Too many shares belong to folks that really do not know what GW does, other than send out dividends.
And how does having GW management owning the shares rectify that situation!?
Edit: sounded a bit confrontational; not having a go, merely expressing my total lack of faith that any of GW upper management would even recognise their own product in a blind taste test.
Herzlos wrote: I think that depends on the store and the number of staff we're talking about. In a smaller store going from 3 to 4 employees might not make much difference, but going from 1-2 might.
With 1 staff member you have to make all sorts of customer unfriendly compromises:
* Stores need to shut for a lunch or toilet break. Disastrous if you've got people in the store at the time
* Stores need to shut at least twice a week
* Stores are often shut on sick days or holidays
* They can't do anything at all when a customer comes in. Disastrous if your customer interactions can be quite long (game/panting demo's, for instance).
** That means you have to stop the demo to deal with any other customers, and you can't get any shop work done when there are customers.
What GW is doing makes sense for short-interaction commodity stores like newsagents - customers are only taking a few seconds of your time, and even they tend to work in shifts or have a second member of staff back of house.
Yeah, I like the manager at the local GW store, he's a good bloke. But in the past couple of months I've gone there, oh, maybe about 6 or 7 times. Once it was shut because it has weird hours I wasn't aware of, another time it was closed with a "back in 10 minutes" sign, another time I wanted to buy something and had to wait for agggggges because there were 2 other customers in the store starting a new army which he was helping first.
After those experiences, I increasingly find myself going to the non-GW store which is 10 minutes drive further away simply because I know the shop will a) be open, b) have someone to serve me.
Too many shares belong to folks that really do not know what GW does, other than send out dividends.
And how does having GW management owning the shares rectify that situation!?
Edit: sounded a bit confrontational; not having a go, merely expressing my total lack of faith that any of GW upper management would even recognise their own product in a blind taste test.
Heh, went to snarl back at you, and found that you had edited between the time that I first saw the post and now.
Thank you!
I was actually thinking that some the GW management might be taking the opportunity to buy in, rather than that they might have manipulated the market to do so.
Increasing the leverage of those few.
I... actually suspect that some of the brass does have a clue - but that the tarnish on top of the brass does not.
I think that the GW stock has been overvalued for a time - and that this is more by way of a correction than an actual crash. Just a pretty big correction.
I suspect that GW has paid dividends in years where they really were not in a position to do so without damage.
Not as bad as taking out a loan to pay dividends, but....
Is there any comparison of how the Forge World subsidiary is doing vs the main line of GW?
It seems to me that I am seeing more 3rd party models on the table, fewer GW models, but that folks are still buying FW models at the same slow rate, and holding on to the models.
There are any number of possible reasons, including local market, but I do wonder whether it is more widespread.
I wonder in part because I thought for some time that Pathfinder outselling D&D 4e was:
a.) just my personal bias,
then
b.) just the local market,
only to discover that it was
c.) just Pathfinder outselling 4e across the board....
And, like the way I felt about 4e, I am much more worried about how GW failing might affect third party and after market companies than caring about GW itself.
As for your points about Forgeworld, I can only offer my opinion and feelings, which is wholly subjective, but to me there are three things about FW that encourage me to buy from them:
1) Their miniatures are generally awesome. I look through the FW website and just drool. Unfortunately a lot of recent GW releases haven't done that for me. For example I find the Tau flyers clunky and "meh", which is ridiculous when they could've just copied the Barracuda/Tigershark aesthetic;
2) FW prices have only had minimal increases in the past few years. Time was that I'd look at their website and think "oh, that is awesome, but I can buy three things for the same price from my FLGS", now it's more like "wow, that's basically the same price as GW and I'd only be able yo get it direct only, so add to cart";
3) FW still give at least the impression that they're run by gamers for gamers. The open days, HH weekenders, sneak peaks in the magazines and blogs, making of videos all seem to indicate a group of very creative individuals who gave a passion for their work.
IMHO this all goes back to your original statement; I may have doubts about GW upper management, but I am certain that FW management do understand their customer base, mainly because they are from the customer base. At times it feels like FW operate on a real "rule of cool" basis; if they feel a direction isn't going to make their fans cheer and gasp, then they don't go that way.
weeble1000 wrote: Except that GW doesn't really take many risks. Kirby is incredibly risk adverse to the point if stagnating the company.
That is questionable. Kirby's strategy has a very high risk of failure, and it usually fails year after year. Like closing stores and reducing sales staff and opening hours when you want to sell more. Like closing HQs and reducing translation staff when you want to increase sales in those countries. Like raising the hurdle for beginners when you need new customers. Like insisting on the no-marketing-policy for years. Like hiring for Yes-Sir-attitude instead of skills.
I suspect that GW has paid dividends in years where they really were not in a position to do so without damage.
Not as bad as taking out a loan to pay dividends, but....
I seem to remember GW did take a loan out to pay dividends a few years back and was then reporting, perhaps a couple of years ago, great news, as they had repaid it?
In the last annual report, Kirby said that GW is doing do damn well, that they can't think of any reasonable way to spend the money than give it to shareholders like him.
I just want them to hit the crapper already, stop wrecking my game so my company can buy them and fix it. I would be at the CEO's desk with an entire box of crayons detailing GW being a miserable sod and probable fixes that would end up with a thriving company.
I joke with the crayons, I would use MSpaint to create all of my graphs. We have to keep it professional after all. Until they fail or they break the game so badly that they have managed to suck all of the fun from it I will continue to buy in tiny amounts or in realist trades.
What I am attempting to gather is how the company is still stable even with a horrible fantasy edition that requires ever larger armies and a bloated 40k line that is bursting at the seams with useless rules and pointless rule books in the name of cheese.
Actually, I intended this to be a bit facetious, but honestly? Thinking about it, it wouldn't be the worst idea!
I know this is a half joke from you, but I'll give you 3 main reason why this would be an AWFUL idea...
1) too easy to steal with them without proper supervision, you can work out similar weighing products, and scan the cheaper product and just bag the more expensive product.
2) Have you seen how awful these things are maintenance wise? They need a full time member of staff to keep running which brings me onto point 3...
3) Have you seen people trying to use these things? You need a full time member of staff to ensure it is idiot proof....
BunkerBob wrote: What acts of pure intelligence caused the 1994, 2001, and 2008 stock drops.
Ironically these are all separated by 7 years each so we are dropping in on the fourth 7 year span.
1994 wasnt a drop. That was shortly after it was listed, and was going up from the IPO.
Publicly traded stocks can maintain value in a couple of ways. One is to actually increase the value of the company. Over the last 20 years, GW hasnt done much in that regard. The business hasnt diversified much at all. Even if you were to come the assets on their balance sheets from the late 1990s to now, it is a change in line with inflation. They have managed to increase liabilities substantially though. A lot of old people will be cashing out as pensioners in a few years...something which GW will be on the hook for in some degree.
The other big way is through dividend payouts. That has been GWs method since day one. When they cant pay the dividend, investors leave. There are plenty of companies which pay dividends, and when you consider that if you had bought stock in the late 1990s, now 15 years later, it would be worth the same or less than when you bought it...there is little reason to stick around.
The people who think that GWs IP is worth significant amounts of money have missed the boat on the broader IP market. When Disney paid $4.5 billion to buy Marvel in 2009, they had already made nearly $8 billion on the current run of Marvel movies. GWs licensing deals will have been lucky to have taken in a couple hundred million dollars. The IP just is not that valuable.
TomKirby
Executive Chairman of the Board, Acting Chief Executive Officer
378.00k GBP
62
Mr. Tom H. F. Kirby serves as Executive Chairman of the Board, Acting Chief Executive Officer of Games Workshop Group Plc. He has been appointed as Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Company effective January 18, 2013. He joined Games Workshop in April 1986 as general manager and led the management buy-out in December 1991, becoming chief executive at that time. Between 1998 and 2000 he took on the role of non-executive chairman, returning to the role of chief executive in September 2000. He now performs the role of chairman following the appointment of Mark Wells as chief executive in December 2007. Prior to joining Games Workshop, Tom worked for six years for a distributor of fantasy games in the UK and was previously an Inspector of Taxes.
Not really pertinent to share price, but I've just discovered a way to save GW almost 400K a year!
BunkerBob wrote: What acts of pure intelligence caused the 1994, 2001, and 2008 stock drops.
Ironically these are all separated by 7 years each so we are dropping in on the fourth 7 year span.
You also missed 1987.. That was a doozy.. They all coincide with downturns on the S&P 500 too..hmm
It's a combination of the business cycle and people being emotional with their money.
Ummm...1987...if you want to dazzle with insights, you should at least know it was privately held till it was bought from Bryan Ansell in 1994 and listed in the fall of that year.
One thing that GW is right about is that sales in these sorts of things tend not to be that closely tied to the broader economy. They are large time sinks and can be replayed over and over. The customer who buy these tend to buy when times are good, but they also buy when times are bad too. Sort of like sales of alcohol, only slightly less sad.
The 1997 drop was tied to lack of dividends largely attributed to games like Magic the Gathering out competing GW for the same dollar.
The 2005 drop is often pointed out as the LotR bubble, but most of that had already died off by the time the trilogy came out on DVD in 2006. While it was a bubble, most the problems with profits rest squarely on management not being able to manage and over extending.
Looking at that "max" chart, it looks like there will be several more corrections forthcoming before it finally starts leveling out and growing - probably dipping down below 400 over the next two years before starting to climb again. Just a guess.
BunkerBob wrote: What acts of pure intelligence caused the 1994, 2001, and 2008 stock drops.
Ironically these are all separated by 7 years each so we are dropping in on the fourth 7 year span.
You also missed 1987.. That was a doozy.. They all coincide with downturns on the S&P 500 too..hmm
It's a combination of the business cycle and people being emotional with their money.
Ummm...1987...if you want to dazzle with insights, you should at least know it was privately held till it was bought from Bryan Ansell in 1994 and listed in the fall of that year.
The S&P 500 was around in 1987.. It's moving with the S&P 500. Or the Russell 2000. take your pick. Either way.. It's funny you picked up on something I pointed out in previous threads.
BunkerBob wrote: What acts of pure intelligence caused the 1994, 2001, and 2008 stock drops.
Ironically these are all separated by 7 years each so we are dropping in on the fourth 7 year span.
You also missed 1987.. That was a doozy.. They all coincide with downturns on the S&P 500 too..hmm
It's a combination of the business cycle and people being emotional with their money.
Ummm...1987...if you want to dazzle with insights, you should at least know it was privately held till it was bought from Bryan Ansell in 1994 and listed in the fall of that year.
The S&P 500 was around in 1987.. It's moving with the S&P 500. Or the Russell 2000. take your pick. Either way.. It's funny you picked up on something I pointed out in previous threads.
The S&P 500 was around in 1987, but GW PLC was not, since the company only went public in 1994, so I have no idea how you're saying that their stock dropped in 1987...
BunkerBob wrote: What acts of pure intelligence caused the 1994, 2001, and 2008 stock drops.
Ironically these are all separated by 7 years each so we are dropping in on the fourth 7 year span.
You also missed 1987.. That was a doozy.. They all coincide with downturns on the S&P 500 too..hmm
It's a combination of the business cycle and people being emotional with their money.
Ummm...1987...if you want to dazzle with insights, you should at least know it was privately held till it was bought from Bryan Ansell in 1994 and listed in the fall of that year.
The S&P 500 was around in 1987.. It's moving with the S&P 500. Or the Russell 2000. take your pick. Either way.. It's funny you picked up on something I pointed out in previous threads.
The S&P 500 was around in 1987, but GW PLC was not, since the company only went public in 1994, so I have no idea how you're saying that their stock dropped in 1987...
I suspect what he's arguing is that the market goes in cycles, and that the current GW drop off is just a symptom of that, as he has always been arguing this.
PhantomViper wrote: And yet you are forgetting to account the decrease in sales, the decrease in profits and especially the lack of dividends in your explanations of why the stock plummeted and are instead hand waving it all away as a result of a weakening economy. And you still haven't explained how that same weakening economy (that actually isn't weakening, all economic indicators in Europe are rising), doesn't also have the same impact on GW's main competitors, on KS or even on the tabletop gaming industry at large since all of those have reported growth...
At this point I wouldn't trust you to manage my sons allowance, let alone any type of investment fund.
I'm giving reasons for the sales slump that actually go inline with the numbers we are seeing. It's not something unique to GW and I have no idea where you are getting the idea Europe is improving. You guys are having bank failures and bailouts left and right. Oh the government numbers right... We will see how long this charade lasts.
2012 called, they want their financial analysis back... You do realise that close to 2 years have passed since that went on, right?
Also, you still haven't explained what sales slump is that that only seems to affect GW but none of its major competitors...
Not really wanting to take issue with kroot's schadenfreude, but it's interesting to compare GW with another company whose name is often linked with theirs, namely Hasbro.
Which is all well and good, until you realise that the redline is showing a company who's shares are valued at ~6x the price of GW's and would be near impossible for a company valued in the billions to grow at the same rate.
EDIT And let's face it, at this point in time, they're not that far apart, it's just GW took a more meandering route on the way.
The cyclical argument definitely has merit in that when liquidity dries up a bit it's often the small stocks and riskier stocks that people pull out of first. News hits the street and while it's bad news, the market reacts more quickly and rapidly than they would if the general sentiment is that money is free flowing.
During a good bull run, a company can have some bad results and the worst that will happen is that it drops a bit and rebounds or just stays flat.
When investor sentiment as a whole is changing and there's liquidity issues caused by larger economic factors, people take the exact same bad news that would have done nothing and sell off their stocks in that company.
Make no mistake, GW's bad performance caused their share price to drop, but investors only allowed it to happen because of larger issues. You need to remember that people can be dumb and pay millions and millions for stocks for companies with no revenues and no hope of profits like they did in 1999 if the company claimed to be in the tech industry.
I think the share price drop obviously has everything to do with the drop in profits and GW not paying a dividend.
The reasons for this drop in profits are quite obvious. People obviously have a lot of problems with the business practices of games workshop and are buying other companies products or not at all. I don;t think you can blame the GFC on the drop in profits. They have only occurred in the last 2 years. The GFC was in 2007-2008. Anyway people on the doll have more time for painting warhammer not less .
Every time I decide I want to actually buy something from them or start a new army they annoy me. Wanted to Start Bretonnian then discover that you can no longer buy the Trebuchet. So no Bretonnian splurge. It's like the whole finecast debacle didn't work out for them (how did a 300 million pound company manage that one? ) , so they've just put their hands up in the air and said "we don't do metal anymore, and finecast isn't selling so we don't do that anymore, so you'll have to just buy plastic ultrasmurfs and if you don't want to then f off.
P.S. Isn't that the whole idea of forge world, to make products like the Trebuchet?
P.S. What is this Kirby blokes background anyway? Does he actually have any personal interest in modeling/war gaming?
Kirby has been with the company a long time and bought it from Bryan Ansell who had his faults but seemed to show more genuine enthusiasm for the games, if all the various interviews with those involved in the early years of GW are to be believed. Kirby is quoted as saying he hated fantasy and his favourite author was Jane Austen.
Howard A Treesong wrote: Kirby has been with the company a long time and bought it from Bryan Ansell who had his faults but seemed to show more genuine enthusiasm for the games, if all the various interviews with those involved in the early years of GW are to be believed. Kirby is quoted as saying he hated fantasy and his favourite author was Jane Austen.
Is switching to one man stores a double edged sword with regard to saving money? There has been a few times I've wanted modelling material and been put off from walking to my local store due to it's limited opening times. I wonder how many other casual gamer's have experienced the same thing and then gone to another source.
Wolfstan wrote: Is switching to one man stores a double edged sword with regard to saving money? There has been a few times I've wanted modelling material and been put off from walking to my local store due to it's limited opening times. I wonder how many other casual gamers have experienced the same thing and then gone to another source.
Very, yes.
I know most of my local GWs (over a large area) are closed on Monday and Tuesday. So, I only every try to visit on other days.
But, if Tuesday is the only day I get into town, as used to be the case, there's no way I'm getting to visit an open store.
Wolfstan wrote: Is switching to one man stores a double edged sword with regard to saving money? There has been a few times I've wanted modelling material and been put off from walking to my local store due to it's limited opening times. I wonder how many other casual gamers have experienced the same thing and then gone to another source.
Very, yes.
I know most of my local GWs (over a large area) are closed on Monday and Tuesday. So, I only every try to visit on other days.
But, if Tuesday is the only day I get into town, as used to be the case, there's no way I'm getting to visit an open store.
Yeah this; no end of times I've wanted to get something on a Monday/Tuesday and couldnt so ordered it online. Another common problem is the un-regular lunch hour that my local store has had for the passed year; I could go down at any time in the afternoon and atleast half of my visits were met with a 'gone to lunch back at xx:xx' sign.
They are actually the only shop in the whole town that close for lunch! (I guess being the only shop that doesnt have another staff member to swap break times with). Its possibly the most flawed retail business plan I've ever seen coming from such a large company that clearly can afford the staff but is being greedy to protect their huge margins?
Now we dont know their margins precisely; but judging them from the metal/finecast thing - metal was too pricy so they swapped to finecast, but charged us MORE for the cheaper to make products. Thus pushing their ever larger margins even higher doubly so at the same time.
Now theyre axing that too, presumably because plastic is even cheaper. The more costly tooling is presumably irrelevant because of sales figures; Seems obvious that the plastic kits outsell all others by far and so cover their own higher initial investment easily. The more they sell the cheaper each one actually gets for them as its dirt cheap to run off more, and the pricey design/tooling stage is done. So the margin just grows and grows the longer they can keep a kit viable and selling. - all these really really old kits still on the shelves shouldve already covered their own design and tooling costs many times over and a sale of one of those carries much larger margins for the company. I'd expect any company to only replace them when sales have dropped off to a predetermined cut off point. but this is GW and they shape their own sales figures with dodgey rules (whether knowingly or not). They could easily up sales across the board by making every unit viable in the game and encourage these kits that carry higher profit for them to still sell.
We don't know their margins on a product by product basis, but we do get how much money they took in and how much making the product they sold cost them to produce from their financial reports, so from those two figures, we can reasonably surmise that their gross profit on product sold is ~70-75% as an average.
azreal13 wrote: We don't know their margins on a product by product basis, but we do get how much money they took in and how much making the product they sold cost them to produce from their financial reports, so from those two figures, we can reasonably surmise that their gross profit on product sold is ~70-75% as an average.
Oh for sure.. total speculation on my part, sorry if that wasnt clear
I just used logic to assume that once a product has sold enough to cover its innitial investment, the margin it earns per sale can only rise (unless ofcourse the dirt cheap styrene plastic becomes exorbitant ), so the older the kit, the more potential for higher margins? (assuming it sold enough to cover itself upon release; as I'm sure is planned for by GW)
Yep, that's logical, especially as they now include production and development costs in their 'cost of sales' figure (it was accounted for separately until the last annual report I believe) so that somewhat neatly removes the costs of tooling, sculpting etc for a kit once the next financial year rolls around,while retaining the income that kit has generated.
Just as an aside, I was watching Ewan Davies' (Dragons Den UK presenter) BBC News/Radio 4 chat show the other evening, and a rather interesting fact came up from one of his guests.
Discussing MBAs, and their emphasis on case studies, one chap mentioned how 5 different accountants prepared a financial report of a company based on their figures at a fixed point in time, 4 reported a company that was in a sufficiently strong financial position to be a solid lending proposition (the 5th disagreeing.)
The figures they based their reports on were taken 24 hours before the company in question went into liquidation.
This really brought home to me something I thought I already understood, which is financial reports can be deeply manipulated to present whatever story you want - makes one consider how near the reality of the situation these interim figures really are....
azreal13 wrote: Yep, that's logical, especially as they now include production and development costs in their 'cost of sales' figure (it was accounted for separately until the last annual report I believe) so that somewhat neatly removes the costs of tooling, sculpting etc for a kit once the next financial year rolls around,while retaining the income that kit has generated.
Accounting rules have changed recently, so that rather than claiming capital depreciation - a percentage of the cost of equipment - every year, for many items you now claim the whole amount in one year, so that would make sense.
HairySticks wrote: ...
Now theyre axing that too, presumably because plastic is even cheaper. The more costly tooling is presumably irrelevant because of sales figures; Seems obvious that the plastic kits outsell all others by far and so cover their own higher initial investment easily. The more they sell the cheaper each one actually gets for them as its dirt cheap to run off more, and the pricey design/tooling stage is done. So the margin just grows and grows the longer they can keep a kit viable and selling. - all these really really old kits still on the shelves shouldve already covered their own design and tooling costs many times over...
All of this logic completely omits overheads. Product will take up shelf space in GW stores that cost a huge amount to run (of which more in a mo); the company itself will have massive overheads, including rent, staff, you name it. So simply talking about the costs of plastic and tooling alone, doesn't tell the full story.
A second-hand acquaintance of mine set up a fairly large book chain, whihc was ulitmately bought by a multiple. The multiple made a few bad deals and had to sell all of its book shops; the friend wanted to buy back his own, old chain. His decision, ultimately, was not about selling books - it was all about good leases and bad leases. He reckoned his old business was now no longer worth buying, on the basis of the leases.
As we know, GW has a huge number of retail outlets - these are a massive cost sink, and whether they're on good leases or bad leases would, for instance, be a crucial question for any prospective purchaser.
How long have they been saying metal prices have been rising? I worked for them at the end of 2004 and got around £150 (retail value) of metal Dwarves for about £35. I can't imagine that they were selling figures to staff at cost, which would mean the actual costs involved were less. That was 2004 though.
Any new owner wouldn't necessarily be beholden to any agreement signed by GW (just as a landlord wouldn't necessarily be o
Afraid not. If a new owner buys the business, they buy the existing leases.
A commercial lease is a binding contract and if you are the new owners, you will be obliged to contintue to pay the rent, unless you can sell on the lease. Of course, you will appeal to the landlord and try and get a rent reduction, but they're not obliged (look at the recent sales of Woolworths, Waterstones, HMV, etc etc). The best way to get out of onerous leases is to go into administration. This is in the UK of course.
HairySticks wrote: ...
Now theyre axing that too, presumably because plastic is even cheaper. The more costly tooling is presumably irrelevant because of sales figures; Seems obvious that the plastic kits outsell all others by far and so cover their own higher initial investment easily. The more they sell the cheaper each one actually gets for them as its dirt cheap to run off more, and the pricey design/tooling stage is done. So the margin just grows and grows the longer they can keep a kit viable and selling. - all these really really old kits still on the shelves shouldve already covered their own design and tooling costs many times over...
All of this logic completely omits overheads. Product will take up shelf space in GW stores that cost a huge amount to run (of which more in a mo); the company itself will have massive overheads, including rent, staff, you name it. So simply talking about the costs of plastic and tooling alone, doesn't tell the full story.
A second-hand acquaintance of mine set up a fairly large book chain, whihc was ulitmately bought by a multiple. The multiple made a few bad deals and had to sell all of its book shops; the friend wanted to buy back his own, old chain. His decision, ultimately, was not about selling books - it was all about good leases and bad leases. He reckoned his old business was now no longer worth buying, on the basis of the leases.
As we know, GW has a huge number of retail outlets - these are a massive cost sink, and whether they're on good leases or bad leases would, for instance, be a crucial question for any prospective purchaser.
I ignored retail related overheads on purpose, because while GW might seem to want to be the only place you can get their stuff, independents still exist and all of their retail related overheads could be zero by encouraging 3rd party stockists, instead they want to sell in their own stores, with 1 member of staff, purely to increase the margins; they make more per sale out of a GW than they do out of a independent retailer by a good 20% or so.
So in my head there is a retail department that operates seperately so the design and manufacture departments. You cannot judge a product simply by its sales inside GW only stores as its not the only place it sells. And frankly I expect that places like wayland games, the warstore and darksphere all massively outsell most GW stores on GW products because of the discount available compounded by the increasing difficulty to actually get served inside a GW store due to the 1man model. I always figured the premium at GW stores covers things like the painting classes, gaming sessions, open tables and the community part of it... now that stuff cant happen because of the 1man model... so there is zero real reason to pay GW's retail prices; they really like to shoot themsleves in the foot, and seem blissfully ignorant of a world outside GW.
Sure. But the bulk of the cost price on the items will nonetheless be the company overhead.
I'm not sure that the stores exist solely to increase their margins; it's been stated by them that a major part of their retail ethos is customer recruitment.
Hivefleet Oblivion wrote: Sure. But the bulk of the cost price on the items will nonetheless be the company overhead.
I'm not sure that the stores exist solely to increase their margins; it's been stated by them that a major part of their retail ethos is customer recruitment.
But the customer recruitment part of it is gone now - 1man store model means that the staff has to drop everything if a sale is possible - so no painting tutorials, gaming sessions, campaigns, open gaming or basically anything that will get in the way of operating the till and making sales pitches.
Sure these thigns probably still happen, but with greatly diminished results because the guy talking to you has to keep stopping to go make sales, your 30minute or 1 hour painting lesson might actually end up being 20minutes of listening to another customers sales pitch waiting for guidance. I just dont see it working as a recruitment platform this way when the community aspect has been gutted from the retail chain int he name of cutting costs (aka raising margins)
Any new owner wouldn't necessarily be beholden to any agreement signed by GW (just as a landlord wouldn't necessarily be o
Afraid not. If a new owner buys the business, they buy the existing leases.
A commercial lease is a binding contract and if you are the new owners, you will be obliged to contintue to pay the rent, unless you can sell on the lease. Of course, you will appeal to the landlord and try and get a rent reduction, but they're not obliged (look at the recent sales of Woolworths, Waterstones, HMV, etc etc). The best way to get out of onerous leases is to go into administration. This is in the UK of course.
If they buy the going concern, yes.
This isn't the only way a new owner could acquire GW assets though.
Arendious wrote: If customer recruitment was really any sort of priority then some of the money recouped by going to 1-man stores would be spent on actual advertising.
I'm not a marketing guy, but one would think that an hourly or even bi-hourly spot on Cartoon Network would more than pay for itself in new sales.
You'd think.
It isn't the only thing that GW's does that flies in the face of conventional thinking though, and the general mindset seems to be 'works' or 'doesn't work' when it comes to this sort of thing, 'works, but could work much better' generally seems to be too much effort for a company run by a CEO who has made himself wealthy already and is just coasting the last few years til he retires to a tropical island somewhere.
Arendious wrote: If customer recruitment was really any sort of priority then some of the money recouped by going to 1-man stores would be spent on actual advertising.
I'm not a marketing guy, but one would think that an hourly or even bi-hourly spot on Cartoon Network would more than pay for itself in new sales.
Sure, whether their philosophy works efficiently is another question, but that's their philosophy. From the website:
"Hobby Centers focus on servicing new customers or beginning hobbyists. The staff excels in introducing people to our products though a series of activities known as Intro Games and Painting Demos. In only 10 minutes, a Games Workshop staff member guides a customer through playing our game and participating in our hobby. Putting the product in the customer's hands and allowing him or her to experience the game is our strongest sales tool..." (etc).
But with one man stores it is a great deal less likely to actually work.
GW is also moving to more obscure locations, so the high-street presence is dropping as well.
The Auld Grump
Indeed. When the entirety of the marketing for your retail operation is "Sometimes lost people wander in looking for 'Call of Duty' and we sell them things", being where people are seems paramount.
It does appear that, as Azreal13 says, the viewpoint of GW leadership is "I have money, and doing nothing makes me more money. Why should we expend time/money just to make LOTS more money?"
Looks like there is a pattern:
Yesterday again two blocks of 25k shares (=2x £130k = 2x $215k ) were bought in a row.
Seems like someone is collecting shares in (almost) half a million dollar steps, third or fourth time at least in the last 2 weeks.
Kroothawk wrote: Looks like there is a pattern:
Yesterday again two blocks of 25k shares (=2x £130k = 2x $215k ) were bought in a row.
Seems like someone is collecting shares in (almost) half a million dollar steps, third or fourth time at least in the last 2 weeks.
That's... interesting. Maybe someone is trying to take over the company (although I would not mind if the BoD got shuffled up)..
Chief of which, when the shares were originally issued, they probably didn't sell for what they are currently valued at, the overall trend, as with all shares, is generally up, and despite the massive drop off, they are still probably worth more now than back in 1994.
As a PLC only actually sees cash from the sale of its own shares when it first issues them, if GW were to be buying them back now, they would actually be repurchasing them at a loss.
25k is nowhere near enough to show up on the record, GW have around 31m shares in circulation, so it is relatively small change, but if it is the same person/organisation with some sort of intent to acquire a significant percentage, they will cross that line eventually, keep an eye on the GW Investor Relations page if you're really curious.
No, its varying up and down by about 10p a day, give or take, nobody is really buying or selling in any quantity, so its relatively stable.
It can look erratic because the Y axis on the price graphs expands and contracts depending on how wide a price range it needs to cover, but the truth is not a lot has happened since the big fall.
If you look at the 1 month chart, it is definately not stable and still on a downward slope. No longer plummeting, though I would guess that has less to do with a lack of people who want to sell.
Many are holding stocks right now purchased in the last 2 years. Selling now would be selling at a loss even including the dividend payments from the last couple years. A lot of investors have a hard time making that decision. After several weeks though, they will choose to cut their losses. When that happens, you will see a small spike upward followed by another significant drop when the automatic sell orders get triggered.
That usually will happen several times over the course of 6 months to a year. After it hits the bottom (likely 200-250p), it will stay there until GW can pull something out to get their dividend back.
In 2000, they were in the bottom of the trough for 6 months or so. In 2007, it lasted a couple years.
PhantomViper wrote: 2012 called, they want their financial analysis back... You do realise that close to 2 years have passed since that went on, right?
Monte dei Paschi, Cyprus, Greece... 22% youth unemployment in Europe. Yeah.. Europe is fixed. It's practically a growth engine. That's why they are debating the idea of confiscating all your savings publicly.
PhantomViper wrote: Also, you still haven't explained what sales slump is that that only seems to affect GW but none of its major competitors...
I don't want to make blanket statements because each case is different and most of their competition isn't public so they don't have the same reporting standards.
That being said.. I mentioned that the quality of revenue and earnings do matter. There are games companies play with revenue recognition in order to meet numbers and the same crap is going on in this space. Basically, it's pulling forward future earnings until the point where they decide to come clean. Usually that decision is made while everyone is really happy so management doesn't get fired and the top dog usually shows their cards 1st. So, IMO... I think GW showed their hand 1st and you'll see others have to acknowledge the slowdown sooner rather than later. I can't do a sufficient job of explaining all the ways companies are legally allowed to do this, but I can recommend a book if people want to read it.
azreal13 wrote: Any new owner wouldn't necessarily be beholden to any agreement signed by GW (just as a landlord wouldn't necessarily be obliged to honour it either)
Would very much depend on the terms and manner of takeover, but a new owner could, potentially, discard the whole retail chain overnight.
Unless GW actually goes bankrupt.. as in actually files for bankruptcy.. They will be beholden to any agreements. This is a public company.. Not the wild west.
loki old fart wrote: Being as the share price dropped to 514,50, it was probably a automated buy order kicking in.
No, all 25k buys were done manually. Though yesterday saw a couple of small automated buys.
This is such nonsense.. There is absolutely zero way to tell how old the existing orders were. You'd have to be sitting there watching the level 2 or actually be the executing broker to know even one side of the trade. Knowing both sides means you'd have to be a broker in personal contact with both parties and do a cross. And if you did know, you'd be brought up on charges by your financial regulatory authority for disclosing anything to anyone about the origination or destination of the trade.
As to the "automated" vs "manual". I think the word you were looking for was an "algorithm". I've seen nothing to suggest anyone is running an algo on GW shares considering it's basically not traded and the spread is consistently quite large. I don't even think you have many market makers putting up their capital honestly.
Seriously.. You are just pulling crap from nowhere and trying to sound like an authority. This is really basic stuff and you have no idea what you are talking about. Every single "buy" you are talking about also had a "sell" attached to it and you have no idea when each order was input.
Kroothawk wrote: Valentine day saw one £100k buy plus several mostly automated minor sells.
dereksatkinson wrote: As to the "automated" vs "manual". I think the word you were looking for was an "algorithm". I've seen nothing to suggest anyone is running an algo on GW shares considering it's basically not traded and the spread is consistently quite large.
No, I am using the information of the website I quoted, listing each buy and distinguishing between ordinary and automatic buys.
Monte dei Paschi, Cyprus, Greece... 22% youth unemployment in Europe. Yeah.. Europe is fixed. It's practically a growth engine. That's why they are debating the idea of confiscating all your savings publicly.
Well, if you think, Cyprus and Greece are the markets that decide GW's destiny then we don't have to talk any further.
Seriously.. You are just pulling crap from nowhere and trying to sound like an authority. This is really basic stuff and you have no idea what you are talking about.
GW has another financial pattern:
When MB made advertising for GW games (Hero Quest, Space Crusade), GW couldn't react that fast to counter the huge interest in their products.
When LOTR and DeAgostini made advertising for GW games, GW was prepared and could cancel contracts, so that the big sales happily ended after 2-3 years. Now GW is eager to never let anyone make advertising for GW again, sueing every tiny attempt. The result is a comfortable flat line or decline in revenue development.
Kroothawk wrote: Well, if you think, Cyprus and Greece are the markets that decide GW's destiny then we don't have to talk any further.
Umm.. no. The fact that Europe is a complete clusterf*** that isn't getting better is probably going to have an impact on sales. Cyprus and Greece are indicators of just that. Unless you think that those 22% youth unemployment number has no bearings on the consumption of GW products.
BunkerBob wrote: I am still amused GW has a 7 year pattern of loose all value and then rapidly recoup it. I really want to see this happen again.
This isn't unique to games workshop. Cycles in the stock market are pretty well documented.
As for GW's dismal returns..
From 1983-2007 the Russell 3000 (98% of US stock liquidity) gained 900% yet..
39% of stocks had a negative return
18.5% lost 75% of their value or more
75% of all 6000 stocks that were added/subbed from the index over that time had a ZERO % return.
So only 25% of all those names participated. Those that did, made incredible returns.
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pretre wrote: Just popped in to see if it was the world against derek still. Leaving satisfied.
I can't help it. If I see something that ridiculous being portrayed as fact, I have to say something. It's my weakness.
I have noticed that you like to throw up lots of charts and graphs which appear to be of both dubious origin and unprofessional layout. For example, I recall a graph you posted some while ago with an artistic background depicting an eagle and an american flag or something. This latest graph is along the same lines and does not even contain or reference any sort of quantitative data.
Note that I am not making any material argument about the specific content of your charts and graphs, as I am not really knowledgeable enough to make a substantive appraisal of the data without an amount of effort that I do not wish to invest.
That said, what I am pointing out is that purely on a qualitative basis, professionals by and large don't make graphs and charts like the ones you have been posting. Anyone can cook up a pretty-looking chart filled with meaningless or biased data, and it strikes me that the type of 'hard' data that you have been posting has had a presentation style rather consistent with charts prepared for consumption by the general public with the intention of making a particular rhetorical point and/or pushing a particular point of view. Such 'data' tends to be highly controversial at best and is usually severely biased.
Taken together with the content of your posts, it seems that you have a very particular view of the economy and the stock market which you personally feel is both a form of special knowledge known to a minority of 'enlightened' individuals, and prophetically accurate. It may be that you know something special that we, the general public, are all too stupid to know, grasp, realize, or believe; but more often than not folks like you turn out to be self-deluded wannabe demagogues with a personal agenda.
So, please forgive me for presuming that you are full of without making the effort to substantively criticize the data underlying your opinions, which I am sure you will take to be evidence that I am an ignorant fool unwilling to question some sort of established authority, such as the government. Much as you are entitled to your opinions, I feel it would be a waste of my time to engage in any sort of substantive discussion with you, and I think you would feel the same. Nevertheless, I thought I would share my overall opinion about all of this as opposed to merely lurking.
"What have you done when you have bested a fool?" - Mattie Ross
I did think that last chart was pretty dodgy looking, though, to be fair, it was the kind of horse-gak image they filled up my last 'management-speak' course with.
Unless the share prices jumps again in either direction I think this topic is a bit stale. Short of some disaster the share price will likely remain pretty flat until the next investors report in about June.
weeble1000 wrote: This latest graph is along the same lines and does not even contain or reference any sort of quantitative data.
You mean the graph that's supposed to show general shareholder mood/reaction to market changes? That's not tied to any specific stock? That doesn't need a reference because it is just a teaching tool?
Not saying your complaints about his other graphs aren't valid, just that this particular graph is not what you might think.
Edit: Unless you were targeting it because of this sentence precluding it
This isn't unique to games workshop. Cycles in the stock market are pretty well documented.
weeble1000 wrote: This latest graph is along the same lines and does not even contain or reference any sort of quantitative data.
You mean the graph that's supposed to show general shareholder mood/reaction to market changes? That's not tied to any specific stock? That doesn't need a reference because it is just a teaching tool?
Not saying your complaints about his other graphs aren't valid, just that this particular graph is not what you might think.
Spoiler:
Not a real graph
It is demonstrative, sure, but it should be based on some kind of quantitative data, shouldn't it? Otherwise how would you know that at a certain point in the downtrend of the market most investors feel "desperation" or "panic?" The chart is purporting to demonstrate highly relevant behavioral patterns that have been the subject of exhaustive quantitative and qualitative research. How the stock market behaves and why is not something that we really understand terribly concretely, though there are plenty of theories.
I don't know much about the stock market, but I do perform behavioral research for a living, which is why this chart prompted me to finally say something.
My brother-in-law writes algorithms used in high frequency trading for a living, which I don't understand much at all, but I do understand that it is not merely about speed, but also predictability. There are many facets of stock market behavior that just aren't predictable to a high degree of certainty today. And he posted that chart like it was gospel. 'Buy after the suckers have panicked and are despondent'. Great, how much did it cost you to attend that seminar? Oh, you get extra points if you bring a friend?
dereksatkinson wrote: Umm.. no. The fact that Europe is a complete clusterf*** that isn't getting better is probably going to have an impact on sales. Cyprus and Greece are indicators of just that. Unless you think that those 22% youth unemployment number has no bearings on the consumption of GW products.
Germany has a youth unemployment of 7.4% last December, that's about half the US rate. (x)
And you still think that Cyprus and Greece are the relevant markets for GW in Europe.
BunkerBob wrote: I am still amused GW has a 7 year pattern of loose all value and then rapidly recoup it. I really want to see this happen again.
This isn't unique to games workshop. Cycles in the stock market are pretty well documented.
GW clearly has no 7 year cycle. Not even for people with great imagination. They just have a bubble where a movie and DeAgostini made successful marketing, filling GW stores, which GW answered with cancelling the cooperation with DeAgostini to stop this unwanted revenue. Since then ... nothing. In a growing market.
If I see something that ridiculous being portrayed as fact, I have to say something. It's my weakness.
Funny that you say that, wanted to say the same.
(x) (How does GW answer this opportunity? They fire the German translation team, erase German product names from the packaging, make a third of the publications including all digital products English only, fire the German HQ and transfer everything to a room in Nottingham, that doesn't even know how to properly write a German address on the bill.)
dereksatkinson wrote: Umm.. no. The fact that Europe is a complete clusterf*** that isn't getting better is probably going to have an impact on sales. Cyprus and Greece are indicators of just that. Unless you think that those 22% youth unemployment number has no bearings on the consumption of GW products.
Germany has a youth unemployment of 7.4% last December, that's about half the US rate. (x)
And you still think that Cyprus and Greece are the relevant markets for GW in Europe.
Not only that, but he also seems to think that the economy of places like Greece and Cyprus are somehow representative for the entire European economy. As if the majority of European countries are governed in even the remotely same way.
Derek, you have a slightly myopic view of European countries. Just to make sure.......you are aware that Europe isn't even remotely comparable to the US in terms of organization, right? You know we are a bunch of separate countries, with separate laws, separate cultures and separate ways of running our countries, right?
EDIT. Denmark has 5.6% unemployment as of January 30th. this year.
This isn't the only way a new owner could acquire GW assets though.
dereksatkinson wrote:
azreal13 wrote: Any new owner wouldn't necessarily be beholden to any agreement signed by GW (just as a landlord wouldn't necessarily be obliged to honour it either)
Would very much depend on the terms and manner of takeover, but a new owner could, potentially, discard the whole retail chain overnight.
Unless GW actually goes bankrupt.. as in actually files for bankruptcy.. They will be beholden to any agreements. This is a public company.. Not the wild west.
I believe I already covered that?
Or is buying assets from a bankrupt company not covered under "not the only way a new owner could acquire GW assets?"
Latest uk stats (to December), puts unemployment at 7.2%, with Youth unemployment for those not in full time education at 18%
18% sounds high, until you look at the history - its fluctuated between approx 15% and 23% since 1992, peaking at 23% in 2008, so 18% is pretty much average for the last 20+ years.
Stats are available from the House of Commons Library (online).
Eggs wrote: Latest uk stats (to December), puts unemployment at 7.2%, with Youth unemployment for those not in full time education at 18%
18% sounds high, until you look at the history - its fluctuated between approx 15% and 23% since 1992, peaking at 23% in 2008, so 18% is pretty much average for the last 20+ years.
Stats are available from the House of Commons Library (online).
Which is more relevant than Greece or Cyprus, could ever be.
weeble1000 wrote: I don't know much about the stock market, but I do perform behavioral research for a living, which is why this chart prompted me to finally say something.
My brother-in-law writes algorithms used in high frequency trading for a living, which I don't understand much at all, but I do understand that it is not merely about speed, but also predictability. There are many facets of stock market behavior that just aren't predictable to a high degree of certainty today. And he posted that chart like it was gospel. 'Buy after the suckers have panicked and are despondent'. Great, how much did it cost you to attend that seminar? Oh, you get extra points if you bring a friend?
The chart I posted is actually a teaching tool for a VERY basic concept of technical analysis which is based around the concept of behavioral economics. It was meant to be conceptual and explain how human emotions can lead to bubbles and capitulation behavior(throwing the baby out with the bathwater). Technical indicators are used by all the major brokerage houses and are included in their research. If you are wanting to get into more detail about those kinds of things, go here..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_analysis
Even Warren Buffet was quoting technical analysis during the 2008 crash so maybe you could go to the Brookshire Hathaway meeting and ask him about getting the extra points for bringing a friend..
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Eggs wrote: Latest uk stats (to December), puts unemployment at 7.2%, with Youth unemployment for those not in full time education at 18%
18% sounds high, until you look at the history - its fluctuated between approx 15% and 23% since 1992, peaking at 23% in 2008, so 18% is pretty much average for the last 20+ years.
15-23% is very high and suggests structural problems with the UK labor markets.
That being said, my comments were directed at Europe as a whole which includes Spain, France, Italy and Greece. I'd love to see you argue that 50% youth unemployment in some of those countries isn't bad.
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loki old fart wrote: And as regards euro banks and economies, the likes of J P Morgan and others are in a far worse state.
No disagreements there.. You have an estimated $300 trillion in derivative exposure on $10 trillion in banking assets. 30:1 leverage means a 3% move against the bank wipes out all equity. Which is why so many banks are failing and you are seeing central banks try to buy illiquid mortgage backed securities to repair bank balance sheets globally.
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Steelmage99 wrote: Just to make sure.......you are aware that Europe isn't even remotely comparable to the US in terms of organization, right? You know we are a bunch of separate countries, with separate laws, separate cultures and separate ways of running our countries, right?
EDIT. Denmark has 5.6% unemployment as of January 30th. this year.....
Do you happen to remember some of the words being tossed around a couple summers ago before the ECB started buying bonds like crazy? Does the word "Contagion" ring a bell?
The reason that The EU authorities were worried about "contagion" is because your banks own sovereign debt of neighboring nations. That hasn't changed.
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azreal13 wrote: Or is buying assets from a bankrupt company not covered under "not the only way a new owner could acquire GW assets?"
I didn't think anyone was actually suggesting that this company was going to suddenly go bankrupt. I don't see how that could happen in the short run and i'm as bearish as it gets on the economy.
@derek, I'm not arguing anything. Some mentioned that uk stats might be more relevant than Cyprus, so I provided them. Are you aiming to be the most abrasive man on the internet? Seems like you'd argue with your own shadow.
Well, most of us here understand, that the GW share price is influenced more by Tom Kirby's decisions of the last decade than by unempoyed teens in Cyprus.
And I ask the mods to keep certain persons from spamming this thread with stupid off topic talk.
azreal13 wrote: Or is buying assets from a bankrupt company not covered under "not the only way a new owner could acquire GW assets?"
I didn't think anyone was actually suggesting that this company was going to suddenly go bankrupt. I don't see how that could happen in the short run and i'm as bearish as it gets on the economy.
And I don't believe that likelihood of it occurring was in any way conditional to my point? I wasn't saying I believe it will happen, merely that it could.
I remember how very fast the collapse of TSR seemed from the outside, and learning how slow and inevitable it really was once the WotC buyout was explained.
GW has made some of those same mistakes, avoided others, and made new ones....
How solid GW looks as a company from the outside might or might not be a comforting illusion.
I suspect that there is indeed some smoke and mirrors going on, but there is still a hope that the core is still strong enough to survive some of the recent decisions.
TheAuldGrump wrote: I remember how very fast the collapse of TSR seemed from the outside, and learning how slow and inevitable it really was once the WotC buyout was explained.
GW has made some of those same mistakes, avoided others, and made new ones....
How solid GW looks as a company from the outside might or might not be a comforting illusion.
I suspect that there is indeed some smoke and mirrors going on, but there is still a hope that the core is still strong enough to survive some of the recent decisions.
The Auld Grump
Something I wrote earlier in the thread...
azreal13 wrote: ......one chap mentioned how 5 different accountants prepared a financial report of a company based on their figures at a fixed point in time, 4 reported a company that was in a sufficiently strong financial position to be a solid lending proposition (the 5th disagreeing.)
The figures they based their reports on were taken 24 hours before the company in question went into liquidation.
It is very easy to project the image you want with accounts, even if things are desperate (I don't think they are, but...)
Kroothawk wrote: Well, most of us here understand, that the GW share price is influenced more by Tom Kirby's decisions of the last decade than by unempoyed teens in Cyprus.
And I ask the mods to keep certain persons from spamming this thread with stupid off topic talk.
Yes.. let's keep the discussion based purely on bashing GW management and completely ignore outside influences that have time and again proven to be the primary driver of stock prices. Heaven forbid you have someone with actual credentials who is licensed with over a decade of experience chiming in. If you want to keep it strictly about GW's "poor management", then name the thread that.
As it currently stands, no one should be talking about management decisions because the topic of this thread is about the share price. If anything, you should be discussing RSI, MACD and support levels like a trader would. You know, technical analysis. No one in their right mind thinks that management decisions are determining day to day price action. All the decisions management has made is already priced into the stock price. Until GW releases another earnings report or real news, that is the way it's going to be.
dereksatkinson wrote: If you want to keep it strictly about GW's "poor management", then name the thread that.
I want to avoid getting into a protracted debate with you on the subject, but given your quite vocal disdain for the opinions of everyone here, I have to ask: Do you truly believe that GW's method of doing business is financially healthy in the long term? Do you feel they have taken the correct steps in pursuing litigation such as the Chapterhouse case (including their behavior therein), or the Spots the Space Marine incident? Do you feel that their attitude towards their customers (especially veterans) is promoting growth?
You've spent a good portion of your posts defending the apparent downturn we've seen in GW's finances, so I am honestly curious if you think that they are doing the best they can for the future of the franchise (and ultimately, their business). If not, then how would you measure the effectiveness of their management or the overall effects that management has made on the health of the company and it's product line?
azreal13 wrote: Or is buying assets from a bankrupt company not covered under "not the only way a new owner could acquire GW assets?"
I didn't think anyone was actually suggesting that this company was going to suddenly go bankrupt. I don't see how that could happen in the short run and i'm as bearish as it gets on the economy.
And I don't believe that likelihood of it occurring was in any way conditional to my point? I wasn't saying I believe it will happen, merely that it could.
They said Rome would never fall but it did. The titanic was unsinkable, and we all know how that ended.
As it currently stands, no one should be talking about management decisions because the topic of this thread is about the share price. If anything, you should be discussing RSI, MACD and support levels like a trader would. You know, technical analysis. No one in their right mind thinks that management decisions are determining day to day price action. All the decisions management has made is already priced into the stock price. Until GW releases another earnings report or real news, that is the way it's going to be.
Management decisions effect sale of product, that in turn effects profits. profitability effects share holder confidence, share holder confidence effects share value. cause and effect..
TheAuldGrump wrote: I remember how very fast the collapse of TSR seemed from the outside, and learning how slow and inevitable it really was once the WotC buyout was explained.
GW has made some of those same mistakes, avoided others, and made new ones....
How solid GW looks as a company from the outside might or might not be a comforting illusion.
I suspect that there is indeed some smoke and mirrors going on, but there is still a hope that the core is still strong enough to survive some of the recent decisions.
The Auld Grump
That is a damn interesting link you got there Grump, this part especially stood out to me:
In all my research into TSR's business, across all the ledgers, notebooks, computer files, and other sources of data, there was one thing I never found - one gaping hole in the mass of data we had available.
No customer profiling information. No feedback. No surveys. No "voice of the customer". TSR, it seems, knew nothing about the people who kept it alive. The management of the company made decisions based on instinct and gut feelings; not data. They didn't know how to listen - as an institution, listening to customers was considered something that other companies had to do - TSR lead, everyone else followed.
In today's hypercompetitive market, that's an impossible mentality. At Wizards of the Coast, we pay close attention to the voice of the customer. We ask questions. We listen. We react. So, we spent a whole lot of time and money on a variety of surveys and studies to learn about the people who play role playing games. And, at every turn, we learned things that were not only surprising, they flew in the face of all the conventional wisdom we'd absorbed through years of professional game publishing.
We heard some things that are very, very hard for a company to hear. We heard that our customers felt like we didn't trust them. We heard that we produced material they felt was substandard, irrelevant, and broken. We heard that our stories were boring or out of date, or simply uninteresting. We heard the people felt that >we< were irrelevant.
I know now what killed TSR. It wasn't trading card games. It wasn't Dragon Dice. It wasn't the success of other companies. It was a near total inability to listen to its customers, hear what they were saying, and make changes to make those customers happy. TSR died because it was deaf.
That was the primary point of my perceived similarity of the two companies, yes.
And both did a very good job of ignoring that thing called 'the interweb' as a passing fad, instead of as a tool for gaining insight into their markets.
dereksatkinson wrote: If you want to keep it strictly about GW's "poor management", then name the thread that.
I want to avoid getting into a protracted debate with you on the subject, but given your quite vocal disdain for the opinions of everyone here, I have to ask: Do you truly believe that GW's method of doing business is financially healthy in the long term? Do you feel they have taken the correct steps in pursuing litigation such as the Chapterhouse case (including their behavior therein), or the Spots the Space Marine incident? Do you feel that their attitude towards their customers (especially veterans) is promoting growth?
You've spent a good portion of your posts defending the apparent downturn we've seen in GW's finances, so I am honestly curious if you think that they are doing the best they can for the future of the franchise (and ultimately, their business). If not, then how would you measure the effectiveness of their management or the overall effects that management has made on the health of the company and it's product line?
You've got a lot of questions here so i'm going to do my best to answer them all. If I miss one, don't hold it against me.
You are mistaken if you think I has disdain for the opinion of everyone here.. Just people that are making projections based off a single trade print or a snapshot of sales over a single quarter.
I don't particularly like having to constantly update my armies and there are plenty of things I would like to change but I do enjoy the hobby and the game.
Chapterhouse is a local vendor for me (i've moved since the last time i've updated this profile). I've made purchases from him in the past and hope to continue to in the future. I would have preferred if GW didn't go after him but I can understand their desire to protect their intellectual property. IMO though, it wasn't worth doing.
As I stated before, I wouldn't buy GW stock. I think the stock market is currently priced for perfection and if anything goes wrong, you get a blow up. Normally a 10% miss in sales really isn't all that big of a deal. The drop had much more to do with unrealistic expectations than anything else IMO. I previously pointed out that plenty of other retailers had misses and their stock prices had similar reactions. Companies much larger than GW too mind you.
As for management.. I think they took a gak situation and turned around the company. I know there are things I'd prefer as their customer but they need to make money and be creative in doing it. I think introducing new units that are exceptionally high quality and highly detailed is a great way to pull money out of my pocket and they have done that. I do think cutting costs was the right thing to do in this environment. IMO, there GW stores are a complete waste of their money here in the USA. I know it's a bit different over in Europe but the FLGS is where most people play and make their purchases. I also do think GW needs to be more forthcoming with assisting the community in rules discussions. Can I say for certain that it would help them make more money? Nope.. Just my opinion. It's not a fact so I can't portray it as such.
Ultimately though.. I do think that earnings will be the determining factor of the effectiveness of management. Not a single report but the summation of the whole body of work. If I'm seeing consistent growth that is timed like a swiss watch, I know someone is playing with numbers. I'm not seeing that here. I don't see management pulling forward future revenue to make their numbers and meet expectations. That is a 180 from what i've seen in a lot of filings from other retailers this past q4.
dereksatkinson wrote: You are mistaken if you think I has disdain for the opinion of everyone here.. Just people that are making projections based off a single trade print or a snapshot of sales over a single quarter.
This might be the reason this thread seems to be everyone vs you in places.
We are not basing anything off this and only this report. The last report said flat revenue after adjusting for inflation, so did the one before that and the one before that. We have seen falling sales for YEARS now and been saying that this, exactly what seems to be starting to happen now, would be the outcome if GW didn't do something. People were accusing GW or raising prices and cutting costs to cover falling sales and now GW seem to finally be in a position where they can't do that anymore. That's why people aren't accepting 'yeah but the economy is bad now' as a response. People saw this coming a year or two off.
Most people predicted the slow decline. The interesting part is that we now have finally passed the tipping point and the market is reacting to it. And the panic reaction of Tom Kirby (closing all non-UKHQs) shows that he is in principle aware of this problem. No solar burst or astrological constellation can cloud that fact. Esp. as the tabletop market as a whole is growing fast (see e.g. Infinty and kickstarter sales), whatever the situation in Cyprus is currently. And with standard marketing and business decisions, GW could easily grow again, whatever the situation in Cyprus is currently.
A very local sign that GW seems to have pared the business down to the bone as far as store staff is that I passed a store on a Saturday ( yesterday ) in a good location in a busy shopping mall that was closed due to staff holidays .
In the past staff were able to be shifted from other stores to cover , seems there may be no spare capacity for this now
dereksatkinson wrote: You are mistaken if you think I has disdain for the opinion of everyone here.. Just people that are making projections based off a single trade print or a snapshot of sales over a single quarter.
This might be the reason this thread seems to be everyone vs you in places.
We are not basing anything off this and only this report. The last report said flat revenue after adjusting for inflation, so did the one before that and the one before that. We have seen falling sales for YEARS now and been saying that this, exactly what seems to be starting to happen now, would be the outcome if GW didn't do something. People were accusing GW or raising prices and cutting costs to cover falling sales and now GW seem to finally be in a position where they can't do that anymore. That's why people aren't accepting 'yeah but the economy is bad now' as a response. People saw this coming a year or two off.
Baragash wrote: Was it Watford? That was closed yesterday for staff holiday, my mate went down to check out the WD about the Knights and was disappointed.
Dynamix wrote: A very local sign that GW seems to have pared the business down to the bone as far as store staff is that I passed a store on a Saturday ( yesterday ) in a good location in a busy shopping mall that was closed due to staff holidays .
In the past staff were able to be shifted from other stores to cover , seems there may be no spare capacity for this now
We recently got a GW store locally here in Hoover, Alabama and I've only been by twice. The second time I went by was on a Wednesday afternoon, if I recall. It was locked. I haven't been back.
If you want people to visit your stores, you may want to have them staffed enough to stay open.
A question: For the past month the stock price is hanging not that far from the 500 mark, briefly dipping just below it before going back up.
If the stock price falls to 499 or lower and stays there for an extended period of time, will it cause the shareholders to panic because they perceive the price to be much lower than it really is, for the same reason as your average joe thinks that $29.99 is way cheaper than $30 due to Just-Under/Psychological Pricing?
You're asking an impossible question. Every shareholder will be thinking differently, there's no way to generalise.
The odds are, those who were likely to get spooked have sold already, so existing stockholders are now probably in it for the long haul in the hope that the price recovers, which, historically, it will given time. Unless GW continue to post falling income.
There's also the chance that if the price drops to a certain point that people will buy it as they perceive the price to be below what they believe it should be.
jonolikespie wrote: That's why people aren't accepting 'yeah but the economy is bad now' as a response. People saw this coming a year or two off.
Saw what exactly? A 10% drop in sales? The stock price to drop? because those aren't exactly that uncommon and not necessarily related to management decisions. I've been hearing how doomed GW was since the 1990s because of how they treated their customers. It's always popular to bash them for their rules and business practices.
Kroothawk wrote: I assume, that if the share price goes below 500, another wave of automatic sells is triggered.
Based on what exactly??
And you didn't didn't show me where you are getting this information that these were "automatic" buys and sells.
Last I checked, buy/sell stops weren't public knowledge.
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Saldiven wrote: There's also the chance that if the price drops to a certain point that people will buy it as they perceive the price to be below what they believe it should be.
yes.. someone has to be buying each time someone sells. Hence, the term "market".
jonolikespie wrote: That's why people aren't accepting 'yeah but the economy is bad now' as a response. People saw this coming a year or two off.
Saw what exactly? A 10% drop in sales? The stock price to drop? because those aren't exactly that uncommon and not necessarily related to management decisions. I've been hearing how doomed GW was since the 1990s because of how they treated their customers. It's always popular to bash them for their rules and business practices.
Forget about the drop is stock price, because that has 0 relevancy to the average GW customer. But that 10% drop in sales (combined with a 30% drop in profits wasn't it?), came in the same period where they re-released their flagship product, the one that supposedly accounts for half their annual sales volume (no, its not 40k, its Space Marines).
Try to spin it anyway that you like, but that isn't a sign of a healthy company.
PhantomViper wrote: Forget about the drop is stock price, because that has 0 relevancy to the average GW customer. But that 10% drop in sales (combined with a 30% drop in profits wasn't it?), came in the same period where they re-released their flagship product, the one that supposedly accounts for half their annual sales volume (no, its not 40k, its Space Marines).
Try to spin it anyway that you like, but that isn't a sign of a healthy company.
I'm not spinning anything.
A single quarterly (or biannual) report is meaningless. Sales revenue and profit can drop even when times are good. That's just the nature of accounting. When you recognize gains and losses isn't always distributed equally. Sometimes it's that way because the company wants to minimize it's tax hit.
That being said, I never said it was a good report for GW. I just don't think it's "doomsday omg GW is going bankrupt" that the GW bashers seem to harp on. They are so emotionally invested into hating on GW that they are watching the ticks of GW's stock price and salivating at every downtick. Each downtick mind you is always because of chapterhouse, Kirby and the rules being unbalanced.
PhantomViper wrote: Forget about the drop is stock price, because that has 0 relevancy to the average GW customer. But that 10% drop in sales (combined with a 30% drop in profits wasn't it?), came in the same period where they re-released their flagship product, the one that supposedly accounts for half their annual sales volume (no, its not 40k, its Space Marines).
Try to spin it anyway that you like, but that isn't a sign of a healthy company.
I'm not spinning anything.
A single quarterly (or biannual) report is meaningless. Sales revenue and profit can drop even when times are good. That's just the nature of accounting. When you recognize gains and losses isn't always distributed equally. Sometimes it's that way because the company wants to minimize it's tax hit.
That being said, I never said it was a good report for GW. I just don't think it's "doomsday omg GW is going bankrupt" that the GW bashers seem to harp on. They are so emotionally invested into hating on GW that they are watching the ticks of GW's stock price and salivating at every downtick. Each downtick mind you is always because of chapterhouse, Kirby and the rules being unbalanced.
6 pages of mostly nonsense to finally get to the point in terms people may understand. DA has been consistent throughout this thread and as an analyst + accountant with 25yrs experience I would say he is fairly accurate:
1) Report isn't good and the trend isn't that good either.
2) Redimentary reading of the balance sheet shows that GW has a long way to go before it dies or comes close. Some may argue a sales death spiral is in evidence but those take a while to truely manifest.
3) Share price is often built on emotion and is forward looking - accounting reports are historic (useful but still historic) and accounting policy (and often reports) may make changes to financial statements that have no bearing on reality.
4) If GW was going under and we could tell then so could its institutional investors. Its share price would be through the floor.
5) Always remember financial statements are only a guide and one doesnt make invest decisions based purely on them.
Watching a share price is interesting, especially if you have a dog in the show, but overall it is of little consequence to the true health of a company. As an example, Bank of America was trading at around $50. It plunged to $5 based purely on emotion and stupidity. I picked it up at $6.50 and currently it is trading at around $16. There was no way that was going under.
It is a similar story for my BP holdings and me double downing on REIT's. Mind you doubling down on JCP may not have been my best move - now there is a company stare bancrupty in the face.
Lol, really, i have a very bad opinion of GW, one i am not shy of shearing, but hate? lol that is so energy and time consuming, they are definetly not worth my time.
Regarding stock specialists, while i do hear them when them make sence, bottom line they are matriculated gamblers.
fullheadofhair wrote: 1) Report isn't good and the trend isn't that good either.
2) Redimentary reading of the balance sheet shows that GW has a long way to go before it dies or comes close. Some may argue a sales death spiral is in evidence but those take a while to truely manifest.
3) Share price is often built on emotion and is forward looking - accounting reports are historic (useful but still historic) and accounting policy (and often reports) may make changes to financial statements that have no bearing on reality. 4) If GW was going under and we could tell then so could its institutional investors. Its share price would be through the floor.
5) Always remember financial statements are only a guide and one doesnt make invest decisions based purely on them.
Watching a share price is interesting, especially if you have a dog in the show, but overall it is of little consequence to the true health of a company.
Exactly. None of what I've said should be considering controversial.
If you go back to my posts on this topic, i've been consistent by saying I wouldn't buy shares in GW because I have a very negative view on the economy and especially retailers. In other words, I think the share prices will be down in the intermediate/long term which has NOTHING to do with the business itself. I'd be much more concerned about a company that is expanding in this environment, taking on debt and is not bracing for hard times.
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xxvaderxx wrote: Regarding stock specialists, while i do hear them when them make sence, bottom line they are matriculated gamblers.
Specialists are actually market makers.. They make their money by creating liquidity on behalf of exchanges.
If you are talking about the people posting on those forums, they are refereed to as retail investors/ small speculators. They aren't licensed and are rarely disciplined.
PhantomViper wrote: Forget about the drop is stock price, because that has 0 relevancy to the average GW customer. But that 10% drop in sales (combined with a 30% drop in profits wasn't it?), came in the same period where they re-released their flagship product, the one that supposedly accounts for half their annual sales volume (no, its not 40k, its Space Marines).
Try to spin it anyway that you like, but that isn't a sign of a healthy company.
Don't feed the troll and he might get bored and go away.
PhantomViper wrote: Forget about the drop is stock price, because that has 0 relevancy to the average GW customer. But that 10% drop in sales (combined with a 30% drop in profits wasn't it?), came in the same period where they re-released their flagship product, the one that supposedly accounts for half their annual sales volume (no, its not 40k, its Space Marines).
Try to spin it anyway that you like, but that isn't a sign of a healthy company.
Don't feed the troll and he might get bored and go away.
spounting nonsense and making irrelvent points is what is feeding DA.
spounting nonsense and making irrelvent points is what is feeding DA.
Just put him on your ignore list alongside all the other abrasive trolls and you never have to read another word he posts ever again, unless someone quotes him of course
While 'fan' may be pushing it a bit, I think, and have continued to do so, that he has valid arguments which provide an alternate view on the situation, my issue is, and continues to be, with the way he chooses to express those views and apparent inability to consider the possibility that those that think differently may also have a point, and apparent reluctance to accept any sort of information that doesn't jive with what he thinks.
"The sign of an educated mind is the ability to consider an idea without accepting it" as they say.
Also
"You catch more flies with honey than with piss. "
While 'fan' may be pushing it a bit, I think, and have continued to do so, that he has valid arguments which provide an alternate view on the situation, my issue is, and continues to be, with the way he chooses to express those views and apparent inability to consider the possibility that those that think differently may also have a point, and apparent reluctance to accept any sort of information that doesn't jive with what he thinks.
"The sign of an educated mind is the ability to consider an idea without accepting it" as they say.
Also
"You catch more flies with honey than with piss. "
But vinegar catches more than either.
The other problem is that he cherry picks data to support his argument - even when the data does not fit the query. (The whole Cypriots issue.)
The Auld Grump, it's sort of like listening to talk radio....
An automatic trade executed by the trading system. Automatic trades are executed by matching buy and sell orders.
Ordinary
The transaction was not covered by any of the other trade types listed.
So no.. it's not the kind of "automatic" trade you are thinking of. All that it's saying is that it was instantly executed once the buy and sell side were both put into the electronic system. It wasn't negotiated by two brokers as a BLOCK trade (in this case negotiated is the terms the LSE uses)
The term you guys are looking for is a stop order.
An automatic trade executed by the trading system. Automatic trades are executed by matching buy and sell orders.
Ordinary
The transaction was not covered by any of the other trade types listed.
So no.. it's not the kind of "automatic" trade you are thinking of. All that it's saying is that it was instantly executed once the buy and sell side were both put into the electronic system. It wasn't negotiated by two brokers as a BLOCK trade (in this case negotiated is the terms the LSE uses)
The term you guys are looking for is a stop order.
While 'fan' may be pushing it a bit, I think, and have continued to do so, that he has valid arguments which provide an alternate view on the situation, my issue is, and continues to be, with the way he chooses to express those views and apparent inability to consider the possibility that those that think differently may also have a point, and apparent reluctance to accept any sort of information that doesn't jive with what he thinks.
"The sign of an educated mind is the ability to consider an idea without accepting it" as they say.
Also
"You catch more flies with honey than with piss. "
I am not the greatest fan of his writing but the points he is making are very relevant imho. He is buy and large accurate though I do take issue with some of his P+L comments. I understood the thematic points he was making with Cyprus etc but myself I would have used something else.
However, I really think this thread has a fundamental flaw to it. Very few people truly understand how an exchange works and just as few people truly understand how a shareprice is formed. I think this has been DA's issue in this thread and I am afraid I have to agree with him. I see little value to this thread to be honest.
I am not the greatest fan of his writing but the points he is making are very relevant imho. He is buy and large accurate though I do take issue with some of his P+L comments. I understood the thematic points he was making with Cyprus etc but myself I would have used something else.
However, I really think this thread has a fundamental flaw to it. Very few people truly understand how an exchange works and just as few people truly understand how a shareprice is formed. I think this has been DA's issue in this thread and I am afraid I have to agree with him. I see little value to this thread to be honest.
My good sir, this thread is all about the sky falling; its intrinsic value is that it is a collection point for fiscal pontification by those, like myself, who have no clue what we're talking about but want to throw things back and forth.
While 'fan' may be pushing it a bit, I think, and have continued to do so, that he has valid arguments which provide an alternate view on the situation, my issue is, and continues to be, with the way he chooses to express those views and apparent inability to consider the possibility that those that think differently may also have a point, and apparent reluctance to accept any sort of information that doesn't jive with what he thinks.
"The sign of an educated mind is the ability to consider an idea without accepting it" as they say.
Also
"You catch more flies with honey than with piss. "
I am not the greatest fan of his writing but the points he is making are very relevant imho. He is buy and large accurate though I do take issue with some of his P+L comments. I understood the thematic points he was making with Cyprus etc but myself I would have used something else.
However, I really think this thread has a fundamental flaw to it. Very few people truly understand how an exchange works and just as few people truly understand how a shareprice is formed. I think this has been DA's issue in this thread and I am afraid I have to agree with him. I see little value to this thread to be honest.
This thread has moved on from the original topic by some distance. While it is now the "share price thread" it started as the "GW have failed to increase or maintain their income for the first time in some time and their share price has tanked thread"
It really doesn't take a financial genius to connect the dots of no dividend - people dump stock - share price tanks, but the reasons for the "no dividend" are where mine and Derek's reasoning part ways.
GW have failed almost equally in all of their global territories, yet Derek continues to cite only evidence with regard to very heavily US biased sources, disregards evidence of UK growth or any of the other major European economies by citing Greece (where nobody had paid income tax since the war or something equally ridiculous) or Cyprus (a tiny island with a small population, half of which is Greek anyway) as some sort of rebuttal, and dismisses Government figures as "Governments lie" (maybe, but the opposition don't if they can score points.) Even if this is a false recovery, it is still a recovery until it isn't.
Then you factor in areas like the Antipodes, who have a very different economic profile, and yet still have seen a similar level of fall off in business, and the common denominator remains GW and how they're conducting themselves.
Then you can factor in the oft quoted, and entirely anecdotal, evidence that everyone else in the wargaming industry is doing quite alright thank you very much for asking, and attributing all of GW's apparent financial glitch down to "well, it's the markets, innit?" just looks like an argument that only takes account of part of the picture.
Wrap all that up in a series of posts that have at best been slightly condescending and at worst downright patronising, and you unfortunately have the situation we have here. I've tried, and have seen others try, to suggest that a slight adjustment in how the arguments are presented might foster more discussion and less bickering, but evidently that doesn't seem to be on DA's to do list just now.
Heck - wargaming is, by all accounts, doing very well in Poland* - but I do not see that being bandied about by the folks that disagree with the relevancy of Cyprus.
The Auld Grump
* Evidenced entirely by some awesome figures coming out of that nation.
I don't trust people who want anyone to bow to some unseen credentials and then continue to state that Cyprus is more relevant to European economy and GW sales than Germany.
Can we now get back to topic instead of feeding a troll?
fullheadofhair wrote: 4) If GW was going under and we could tell then so could its institutional investors. Its share price would be through the floor.
Only if the investors know anything about the reality and the market, and from what I recall no investors have really done much research into GW as it's such small fish for the trust funds that make up the majority of the stock holdings. From an investors point of view sales are down but there's no reason they won't come back up, from a gamers view the sales are down because they are losing customers to pricing/competition.
I'm sure there are plenty of companies that fold even though stock holder confidence and the stock price is high.
Having a read of the first few pages of that stockholder discussion, it seems they are regarding the dividend yield as pretty high and many are holding onto the stock in the hope that the dividends restart soon at the same sort of good rate. From that, I wonder what'd happen to the stock price if they suspend the divident for a 2nd consecutive quarter (it's done quarterly, isn't it?)
Edit: Share price is now 495, lowest it's been since Feb 2012. I wonder if dropping below the magic 500 line will scare the more emotional investors.
fullheadofhair wrote: 4) If GW was going under and we could tell then so could its institutional investors. Its share price would be through the floor.
Only if the investors know anything about the reality and the market, and from what I recall no investors have really done much research into GW as it's such small fish for the trust funds that make up the majority of the stock holdings. From an investors point of view sales are down but there's no reason they won't come back up, from a gamers view the sales are down because they are losing customers to pricing/competition.
I'm sure there are plenty of companies that fold even though stock holder confidence and the stock price is high.
Having a read of the first few pages of that stockholder discussion, it seems they are regarding the dividend yield as pretty high and many are holding onto the stock in the hope that the dividends restart soon at the same sort of good rate. From that, I wonder what'd happen to the stock price if they suspend the divident for a 2nd consecutive quarter (it's done quarterly, isn't it?)
Edit: Share price is now 495, lowest it's been since Feb 2012. I wonder if dropping below the magic 500 line will scare the more emotional investors.
They know more than you seem to think. I have met with some GW Investors at their request during the Finecast issues. They expressed concern.
Kroothawk wrote: I don't trust people who want anyone to bow to some unseen credentials and then continue to state that Cyprus is more relevant to European economy and GW sales than Germany.
Can we now get back to topic instead of feeding a troll?
Oh the irony of this post!
This thread is like a microcosm of Dakka.
A chap who seems to have some specific knowledge of a topic is derided for not towing the line of other louder more frequent posters who will continue to repeat their own assumption ad nauseam until we accept or get bored and find something else to read. Derek's posts (while not entirely spot on in geographical economics) have remained to the point, dismissing him as troll only does you a disservice.
By way of trying to put an end to the tangent of southern European economies, GW is mostly owned by UK pension and investment funds. The UK being a non Eurozone nation isn't nearly as exposed to these risks/failings and continental Europeans would be. We can therefore dismiss them as having any truly meaningful impact on GWs stock price.
Kroothawk wrote: I don't trust people who want anyone to bow to some unseen credentials and then continue to state that Cyprus is more relevant to European economy and GW sales than Germany.
Can we now get back to topic instead of feeding a troll?
Oh the irony of this post!
This thread is like a microcosm of Dakka.
A chap who seems to have some specific knowledge of a topic is derided for not towing the line of other louder more frequent posters who will continue to repeat their own assumption ad nauseam until we accept or get bored and find something else to read. Derek's posts (while not entirely spot on in geographical economics) have remained to the point, dismissing him as troll only does you a disservice.
By way of trying to put an end to the tangent of southern European economies, GW is mostly owned by UK pension and investment funds. The UK being a non Eurozone nation isn't nearly as exposed to these risks/failings and continental Europeans would be. We can therefore dismiss them as having any truly meaningful impact on GWs stock price.
Speaking of irony...
You are praising DA's apparent "specific knowledge" of the topic (which is just claimed, none of his "analysis" has been anything more than superficial US-centric macro-economics babble combined with some serious lack of knowledge of European economic realities and with a slight pinch of conspiracy theory just for flavour), while in the same post refuting one of his supposed reasons for the stock crash drop.
Kroothawk wrote: I don't trust people who want anyone to bow to some unseen credentials and then continue to state that Cyprus is more relevant to European economy and GW sales than Germany.
Can we now get back to topic instead of feeding a troll?
Oh the irony of this post!
This thread is like a microcosm of Dakka.
A chap who seems to have some specific knowledge of a topic is derided for not towing the line of other louder more frequent posters who will continue to repeat their own assumption ad nauseam until we accept or get bored and find something else to read. Derek's posts (while not entirely spot on in geographical economics) have remained to the point, dismissing him as troll only does you a disservice.
By way of trying to put an end to the tangent of southern European economies, GW is mostly owned by UK pension and investment funds. The UK being a non Eurozone nation isn't nearly as exposed to these risks/failings and continental Europeans would be. We can therefore dismiss them as having any truly meaningful impact on GWs stock price.
Speaking of irony...
You are praising DA's apparent "specific knowledge" of the topic (which is just claimed, none of his "analysis" has been anything more than superficial US-centric macro-economics babble combined with some serious lack of knowledge of European economic realities and with a slight pinch of conspiracy theory just for flavour), while in the same post refuting one of his supposed reasons for the stock crash drop.
Speaking of problems from Southern Europe....
You don't seem to understand irony nor the point I was making. And that was that some different discourse rather than the same old lame old "change what ever the topic is to GW sucks" is to be encouraged.
The essay about the TSR takeover was interesting, but also saddened me to some extent - the author writes that they at WOTC listen to the customers, but a couple of years after the takeover, they committed the atrocity that was DnD 4Ed. Shame.
Kroothawk wrote: I don't trust people who want anyone to bow to some unseen credentials and then continue to state that Cyprus is more relevant to European economy and GW sales than Germany.
That is a misrepresentation.
My point was that the European economy is not stable. Cyrpus, Greece, Spain and Italy are symptoms. The ECB didn't do the LTRO or LTRO 2 and now discussing doing full on unsterilized 'asset' purchases because everything is rosy. The same could be said in the USA where the Fed is buying MBS and treasuries and Japan has it's own unlimited QE. Even with these programs, we have seen bank failures across Europe and here in the USA. The example of Cyprus was where two banks blew up because they owned sovereign debt of a neighboring nation and when yields spiked, it caused a bank failure. That failure was so meaningful that it practically paralyzed the country and then impacted the yields of Italy and Spain. That is what caused the ECB to go full slow with their monetary policy.
You are just mad because I showed that you didn't know what you were talking about with the automatic trades thing.
By way of trying to put an end to the tangent of southern European economies, GW is mostly owned by UK pension and investment funds. The UK being a non Eurozone nation isn't nearly as exposed to these risks/failings and continental Europeans would be. We can therefore dismiss them as having any truly meaningful impact on GWs stock price.
Well.. the question you have to ask yourself is what else do those pensions own? Do they own debt? Other publicly traded securities? Do they own sovereign debt from their neighbors? Typically it's a mix.
And realistically.. you don't have to even own sovereign debt to be impacted by it. During the last flare up of yields in Europe, we saw both equities and debt take a hit at the same time. A bunch of these financial institutions were so leveraged that while their positions were moving against them, they had to raise cash everywhere they could. So you saw stocks sell off at the same time as debt.
Alkasyn wrote: The essay about the TSR takeover was interesting, but also saddened me to some extent - the author writes that they at WOTC listen to the customers, but a couple of years after the takeover, they committed the atrocity that was DnD 4Ed. Shame.
TSR was purchased by WotC in 1996, 18 years ago, not exactly a couple years ago. WotC also over saw the publishing of D&D 3rd, 3.5 and 4th. By most indications, D&D 3rd and 3.5 were well received. 4th may have some issues people don't like. Based on the wikipedia article, it appears 4th was created based on player input, however it seems they went too far past center for the majority of the populace. Let's wait to 5th edition before WotC doesn't listen customers.
PhantomViper wrote: You are praising DA's apparent "specific knowledge" of the topic (which is just claimed, none of his "analysis" has been anything more than superficial US-centric macro-economics babble combined with some serious lack of knowledge of European economic realities and with a slight pinch of conspiracy theory just for flavour), while in the same post refuting one of his supposed reasons for the stock crash drop.
It's a few days old (references the share price at 514p) but worth a brief read.
Pertinent portion of that article:
"Finally there's Games Workshop (LSE: GAW.L - news) (LSE: GRP (SES: G18.SI - news) ), a £160m developer of role-playing games and one of the most idiosyncratic businesses on the market today.
Indeed, the chairman has replaced the progressive dividend policy with a 'pay-what-we-can' approach and likes to keep shareholder updates to a minimum.
Certainly the market was stunned last month when it saw interim profits down 30% - there was no earlier warning and the shares submerged 25%.
This business is apparently the predominant player in the war-gaming sector, although the track record does not suggest a genuine 'franchise'. Profits of £21m in 2013 compare with £20m achieved back in 2004, with the years in between witnessing various problems followed by a strong recovery.
Still, that strong recovery, £10m net cash and executive bonuses limited to just £1,000 suggests all is not lost here. I should add the boss currently boasts a £10m stake and spent £1m two years ago buying shares at 535p (the price is now 514p)."
Let me give you guys an example of how to read a chart..
Spoiler:
On this monthly chart you can see the RSI failed to make a new high and confirm the new high in price. That indicates you are losing strength and are setup for a decline. That is what we call a negative divergence.
A few years back, you could see that the price made a new low for the move but RSI did not confirm the new low. That indicated it was gaining strength. That is what we call a positive divergence.
The lines I drew in here are indications of support zones. I am not predicting it will stop there but I think testing those levels (460) is a given. 350s are even possible and the chart would still be technically in an uptrend.
Now.. you can also look at the weekly chart below.
Spoiler:
You can see even more pronounced negative divergences leading up to this decline. New highs in price and RSI was not confirming.
At this point, we have a Sub 30 RSI on a weekly basis and the MACD is buried. So i'd expect some sort of bounce at some point based on that. It likely will not be a "low" because there are no divergences at this point.
Now.. this doesn't just apply to analysis of GW.. Look at these charts..
Spoiler:
If you don't know what to look for, you'll be sitting there saying how great the chart looks. Look a new high! awesome. But if you notice the divergences, you would have been OUT of this name. Which name was this and when?
Spoiler:
and what happened next?
Spoiler:
A collapse and eventually a bottom with a positive divergence..
Now.. knowing what i've shown.. who wants to own this chart?
Let me give you guys an example of how to read a chart..
On this monthly chart you can see the RSI failed to make a new high and confirm the new high in price. That indicates you are losing strength and are setup for a decline. That is what we call a negative divergence.
A few years back, you could see that the price made a new low for the move but RSI did not confirm the new low. That indicated it was gaining strength. That is what we call a positive divergence.
The lines I drew in here are indications of support zones. I am not predicting it will stop there but I think testing those levels (460) is a given. 350s are even possible and the chart would still be technically in an uptrend.
Now.. you can also look at the weekly chart below.
You can see even more pronounced negative divergences leading up to this decline. New highs in price and RSI was not confirming.
At this point, we have a Sub 30 RSI on a weekly basis and the MACD is buried. So i'd expect some sort of bounce at some point based on that. It likely will not be a "low" because there are no divergences at this point.
Little hint, if you're trying to explain something to people who you have previously spoken down to, indicating you believe them to be at best ignorant, at worst stupid, littering your explanation with a bunch of acronyms without explaining what their definition is or their implications are won't really help in what you're trying to achieve.
Let me give you guys an example of how to read a chart..
On this monthly chart you can see the RSI failed to make a new high and confirm the new high in price. That indicates you are losing strength and are setup for a decline. That is what we call a negative divergence.
A few years back, you could see that the price made a new low for the move but RSI did not confirm the new low. That indicated it was gaining strength. That is what we call a positive divergence.
The lines I drew in here are indications of support zones. I am not predicting it will stop there but I think testing those levels (460) is a given. 350s are even possible and the chart would still be technically in an uptrend.
Now.. you can also look at the weekly chart below.
You can see even more pronounced negative divergences leading up to this decline. New highs in price and RSI was not confirming.
At this point, we have a Sub 30 RSI on a weekly basis and the MACD is buried. So i'd expect some sort of bounce at some point based on that. It likely will not be a "low" because there are no divergences at this point.
Little hint, if you're trying to explain something to people who you have previously spoken down to, indicating you believe them to be at best ignorant, at worst stupid, littering your explanation with a bunch of acronyms without explaining what their definition is or their implications are won't really help in what you're trying to achieve.
Actually, it might - depends on what he's trying to achieve.
I have my doubts at this point, but I am monitoring this thread...
azreal13 wrote: Little hint, if you're trying to explain something to people who you have previously spoken down to, indicating you believe them to be at best ignorant, at worst stupid, littering your explanation with a bunch of acronyms without explaining what their definition is or their implications are won't really help in what you're trying to achieve.
Oh I never said anyone was stupid. There is a big difference between being ignorant about a subject and incapable of learning about it. I am ignorant about many aspects of constructing a home or building/maintaining an automobile. That doesn't make me stupid, just uninformed. I can recognize my ignorance about MANY things. This is my profession and i'm speaking from expertise.
The RSI is classified as a momentum oscillator, measuring the velocity and magnitude of directional price movements. Momentum is the rate of the rise or fall in price. The RSI computes momentum as the ratio of higher closes to lower closes: stocks which have had more or stronger positive changes have a higher RSI than stocks which have had more or stronger negative changes.
The RSI is most typically used on a 14 day timeframe, measured on a scale from 0 to 100, with high and low levels marked at 70 and 30, respectively. Shorter or longer timeframes are used for alternately shorter or longer outlooks. More extreme high and low levels—80 and 20, or 90 and 10—occur less frequently but indicate stronger momentum.
To be fair, he didn't start off this way. Some of the response in this thread have been a little obtuse - sometimes because of a lack of knowledge others out of sheer wilfulness.
This is a very specialized subject. Drivers behind share price movements are both based on subjective feelings and factual data both of which are converted into information that has differing value depending on its source.
The average person and even the average knowledgeable investor are often playing a game of pin the tail on the donkey. Unless you actually understand those charts and have a full analysis of the comapny at your fingertips when posting in this thread, all you are doing is commenting based on gut feeling and observation.
Lets be fair - the fact that many of you didn't even understand the context of "automatic" actually makes your opinion irrelevent in this thread.
That isnt meant to sound mean or dismissive - it is just a simple statement of fact, if you don't understand basic theory you cannot really offer an opinion. Just as if you dont understand basic law you cannot offer a legal opinion in the CHS thread.
Actually, a presentation of how self-regarding arrogant managers with omnipotency fantasies can totally lose contact with reality is kind of on topic, as it illustrates the mind set how the GW management with all their credentials is ruining their company and not being aware of it, even when obvious to the general public.
I still hope that the people with some basic economic training wanting us to stop stating our opinion don't succeed in getting this discussion locked with their off topic posts.
Alpharius wrote: Actually, it might - depends on what he's trying to achieve.
Teach people how to use a basic momentum indicator correctly?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kroothawk wrote: I still hope that the people with some basic economic training wanting us to stop stating our opinion don't succeed in getting this discussion locked with their off topic posts.
Alpharius wrote: Actually, it might - depends on what he's trying to achieve.
Teach people how to use a basic momentum indicator correctly?
I can't speak for Alph, but I had to make the call as to whether that post was a genuine attempt at helping other people understand more about the subject, or just an attempt to show off your greater knowledge.
Using acronyms without explanation would certainly favour the latter, but not everyone is a natural educator, and as I do think you've got genuine credentials and can offer insights, I decided to offer the benefit of the doubt.
azreal13 wrote: Using acronyms without explanation would certainly favour the latter, but not everyone is a natural educator, and as I do think you've got genuine credentials and can offer insights, I decided to offer the benefit of the doubt.
Nope.. i'm not an educator nor a diplomat.
I'm also not really giving a rosy picture of GW's next 9-12 months either.
Kroothawk wrote: Actually, a presentation of how self-regarding arrogant managers with omnipotency fantasies can totally lose contact with reality is kind of on topic, as it illustrates the mind set how the GW management with all their credentials is ruining their company and not being aware of it, even when obvious to the general public.
I still hope that the people with some basic economic training wanting us to stop stating our opinion don't succeed in getting this discussion locked with their off topic posts.
The quality of management and its attitude to its customers and therefore its overall rating is a key component in any analysis - to not consider that would not be good practice. That is certainly on topic.
The trouble is, often your stated opinion has been wrong on a factual/ knowledge basis. That isn't wanting you to stop commenting entirely - it has been a desire to correct your misunderstanding of the topic and to increase your knowledge.
FYI, I think it should be really apparent that DA has just a little more than "basic economic training". His comments are no different to the the times you have tried to correct people from posting factually incorrect stuff.
azreal13 wrote: Using acronyms without explanation would certainly favour the latter, but not everyone is a natural educator, and as I do think you've got genuine credentials and can offer insights, I decided to offer the benefit of the doubt.
Nope.. i'm not an educator nor a diplomat.
I'm also not really giving a rosy picture of GW's next 9-12 months either.
So using your experience, how do you think this will go. Over the next year.
loki old fart wrote: So using your experience, how do you think this will go. Over the next year.
It really does depend... If we can get that monthly RSI down into the low 30s and have a capitulation I think it could back above where it's currently trading inside of 12 months. It could be a slow drip lower that lasts 9 months.. No one really knows and if they are trying to tell you they do, they are lying.
What you want to see is for positive divergences to develop and then an uptrend to form. One where you are getting higher lows and higher highs.
Is that going to happen? Based on how the monthly chart looks, I think there is more downside for the next 9-12 months. That's not to say we wont have bounces (we could easily see one given how oversold the weekly is) but I don't think we start a new uptrend until we see that RSI touch 30 on a monthly. mid cap names tend to do that for some odd reason.
So if you held a gun to my head I'd say we are likely headed potentially as low as the mid 300s. I wouldn't be touching this thing right now from the long or short side though. Not a good trade.
loki old fart wrote: So using your experience, how do you think this will go. Over the next year.
It really does depend... If we can get that monthly RSI down into the low 30s and have a capitulation I think it could back above where it's currently trading inside of 12 months. It could be a slow drip lower that lasts 9 months.. No one really knows and if they are trying to tell you they do, they are lying.
What you want to see is for positive divergences to develop and then an uptrend to form. One where you are getting higher lows and higher highs.
Is that going to happen? Based on how the monthly chart looks, I think there is more downside for the next 9-12 months. That's not to say we wont have bounces (we could easily see one given how oversold the weekly is) but I don't think we start a new uptrend until we see that RSI touch 30 on a monthly. mid cap names tend to do that for some odd reason.
So if you held a gun to my head I'd say we are likely headed potentially as low as the mid 300s. I wouldn't be touching this thing right now from the long or short side though. Not a good trade.
So in basic English. Unless some positive news, next 9 to 12 months slow decline. Wouldn't touch their shares with a barge pole
I wouldn't be touching this thing right now from the long or short side though. Not a good trade.
So this begs the question, of course, does GW have the resources and wherewithal to turn this situation around faster?
Assuming for the moment that your analysis is accurate (I have no reason to doubt this), then surely GW has access to the same information. If this is the case, does GW have an opportunity to have this downside last closer to 3-6 months (or less) rather than 9-12 months, or do they simply have to ride out "market forces" with no real control over what happens? More importantly, could (or should) GW have taken steps earlier to leave their company more resistant to this type of downturn? Or is it simply not worth it to invest in practices that aren't focused on direct product growth when the financial world is so cyclical anyway?
The way you discussed RSI and your conclusions about GW's performance therein seems to indicate that businesses might exercise some control over that aspect of their company, so when something like this happens, is it natural (or indeed, wise) to reevaluate one's business model? (i.e., is it more normal to "go with the flow" or "hold against the tide"?)
A normal company that comminicates, would have a better chance of turning around. The next word from GW though wont be until July or August. Silence makes investors nervous on downward slides.
GW management will likely try to accelerate releases even more (not like the previous 7+ months have been lacking) in order to get a profit back to justify something like an iterim dividend report. Barring that, GW will remain silent. With nothing from them, there will be nothing to actually cause a change in direction of stock prices.
The RSI is also somewhat of a limited indicator for low volume stocks like GW. Because of the way it is calculated, you can get back close to 30 after a bit of inactivity. That doesnt mean any real change and institutions often wait for that to happen so they can dump stock on a small upswing as opposed to when the masses panic and sell on the downward slide.
That creates the small upticks followed by large drops I mentioned previously. If a company like Nomad kicks out a chunk of stocks, the result ends up being a few dozen traders following suit and another 20% drop. Panic ensues, and down it goes till no one wants to buy and no one can afford to sell.
dereksatkinson wrote: So if you held a gun to my head I'd say we are likely headed potentially as low as the mid 300s. I wouldn't be touching this thing right now from the long or short side though. Not a good trade.
So in basic English. Unless some positive news, next 9 to 12 months slow decline. Wouldn't touch their shares with a barge pole
That's basically consensus among all people interested in GW's economic future, Harvard Business School or not. Only question was, how much of their infrastructure GW could sell, before the decline became obvious in the annual reports and shareholders became aware. This moment now has come. And good news is, now for the first time the decline is hurting the people responsible for it.
We have a company in GW who supports a luxury item in a niche market that the majority of investors have no idea about. The news out of GW to the investors is the same as the news to the customers, none, meaning investors are purely going off quarterly/bi-annual reports, dividends and stock performance against the market. Looking at the stock price, it basically follows this trend with a huge falloff after the last report and a slow decline, with the next drastic inflection point probably being a large market trend or GWs next report. GW may be able to recall some of their stock, making it more valuable, but I don't think they have the cash to do that. Basically any comments until the next report comes out is speculation.
With that, time to speculate. GW is currently saturating the market with product in order to get revenue up. They are expanding their lead game to allow a larger variety of powerful models to be played and are rumored to be getting ready to release a new edition. They are continuing to sell items at high prices while also cutting back on their retail arm's cost. It appears to me that GW is all-hands on deck to try make the report in July show an increase in revenue and at least no decline in volume. I do not see them making any attempt to change how the interact with customers or independent retailers. I also haven't seen any indication that they are trying to leverage their IP for a new video game, movie or other source to bring in more cash flow. To me, this means they attempting to run the well dry on their current games and squeeze every drop of money out of them they can. I think even if GW makes a short term gain, they will eventually fall even further because people will run out of money or get tired of the steeper treadmill of new product. I guess you could say that the current tactics by GW may provide a short term gain, but will actually result in a accelerated fall due to people getting feed up faster.
BTW, the stock is currently at 493, lower than any other time since Feb 6, 2012 (two year low). Now to get to the 3 year low, it's going to have to drop another 150 points, which on the current linear trend would take 120 days (June 28, 2014). I'd assume the drop off isn't going to be completely linear, which means this time next year will be the best indicator.
Xca|iber wrote: So this begs the question, of course, does GW have the resources and wherewithal to turn this situation around faster?
Assuming for the moment that your analysis is accurate (I have no reason to doubt this), then surely GW has access to the same information. If this is the case, does GW have an opportunity to have this downside last closer to 3-6 months (or less) rather than 9-12 months, or do they simply have to ride out "market forces" with no real control over what happens? More importantly, could (or should) GW have taken steps earlier to leave their company more resistant to this type of downturn? Or is it simply not worth it to invest in practices that aren't focused on direct product growth when the financial world is so cyclical anyway?
The way you discussed RSI and your conclusions about GW's performance therein seems to indicate that businesses might exercise some control over that aspect of their company, so when something like this happens, is it natural (or indeed, wise) to reevaluate one's business model? (i.e., is it more normal to "go with the flow" or "hold against the tide"?)
It's not really a function of GW controlling their stock price. Prices fluctuate based on investor sentiment and you can't really control those fluctuations. Investor sentiment goes from optimistic to pessimistic regardless of what management does. The only reason why you'd have management looking at investor sentiment is to time a stock offering or make personal purchases and/or sales. Good management teams will raise money when you are overbought because it doesn't dilute share holders as much. Doing it in the hole is a sign of desperation and results in unnecessary dilution.
Ultimately.. You don't want management thinking about their stock price over the next 9 months. You want them focused on making money.
Sean_OBrien wrote: The RSI is also somewhat of a limited indicator for low volume stocks like GW. Because of the way it is calculated, you can get back close to 30 after a bit of inactivity. That doesnt mean any real change and institutions often wait for that to happen so they can dump stock on a small upswing as opposed to when the masses panic and sell on the downward slide.
Well.. a good technician would have seen the H&S bottom and bought the breakout of the neckline back in july of 2009 and definitely would have been gone from the trade or at the very least much smaller in it after we broke the power uptrend line back in december. Mainly because of the obvious divergences. Kind of playing monday morning quarterback by saying that but RSI divergences have worked on this name pretty well.
Sean_OBrien wrote: That creates the small upticks followed by large drops I mentioned previously. If a company like Nomad kicks out a chunk of stocks, the result ends up being a few dozen traders following suit and another 20% drop. Panic ensues, and down it goes till no one wants to buy and no one can afford to sell.
I don't think it works like that. If an institutional client is selling, someone else is buying. You don't always know the reason why someone is selling. Sometimes they are selling because they have to and it's not a reflection of their outlook on the company. If a fund is getting redemption requests, they have to sell.
Remember.. these funds are the guys who elected the current management team. They aren't going to dump simply because another fund is dumping. Guys that size would likely call up a few brokers and try to do block sales if they had given up. There isn't sufficient liquidity to sell it directly to the market and if they did, they would get a crap price. If you are seeing a fund sell their position from an Electronic trading platform, they are unsophisticated and/or likely doing it out of fear. You'd want to take the opposite side of that transaction 9 times out of 10.
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Kroothawk wrote: That's basically consensus among all people interested in GW's economic future, Harvard Business School or not. Only question was, how much of their infrastructure GW could sell, before the decline became obvious in the annual reports and shareholders became aware. This moment now has come. And good news is, now for the first time the decline is hurting the people responsible for it.
Well.. if they have an asset that is not productive, they should get rid of it and run a leaner company.
If the digital sales, the Knights and the slew of other releases make them good money, I can see GW turning this around in the short term.
It's the kits that make them the big money, and they have just released an excellent one, so I suppose we'll be seeing a little profit spike from this.
I dislike many GW policies, but I don't see them going under from this decline, not for a while anyhow.
We have a company in GW who supports a luxury item in a niche market that the majority of investors have no idea about. The news out of GW to the investors is the same as the news to the customers, none, meaning investors are purely going off quarterly/bi-annual reports, dividends and stock performance against the market.
This is incorrect.
These institutions elected the directors of the company who voted in the CEO. They better know exactly what is going on. If they don't have a clue, they didn't elect the right person to represent their interests to the board of directors.
These guys will know a hell of a lot more than you'll ever see disclosed in a report published by the company or their auditors.
Da Boss wrote: If the digital sales, the Knights and the slew of other releases make them good money, I can see GW turning this around in the short term.
It's the kits that make them the big money, and they have just released an excellent one, so I suppose we'll be seeing a little profit spike from this.
I dislike many GW policies, but I don't see them going under from this decline, not for a while anyhow.
HA! Not likely. One or two good kits is not going to turn this around, not with a 30% drop in profits. GW will sell a few thousand knights. BFD for GWs bottom line. GW needs more to bring the numbers up.
Even at a 50% profit margin on wholesale, you figure 40 bucks profit per knight, maybe 50 if you figure some are direct sales. If GW is lucky, maybe knights might bring in 150K profit. I doubt it would be that much.
We have a company in GW who supports a luxury item in a niche market that the majority of investors have no idea about. The news out of GW to the investors is the same as the news to the customers, none, meaning investors are purely going off quarterly/bi-annual reports, dividends and stock performance against the market.
This is incorrect.
These institutions elected the directors of the company who voted in the CEO. They better know exactly what is going on. If they don't have a clue, they didn't elect the right person to represent their interests to the board of directors.
These guys will know a hell of a lot more than you'll ever see disclosed in a report published by the company or their auditors.
So how would you interpret that several (the majority?) of the institutional stakeholders this time last year have now sold all or a substantial part of their stake, prior to the interim result that triggered all the furore?
No fund had any say in selecting the management, except stockholder Tom Kirby himself. And currently no fund holds more than 150% of what Tom Kirbyhimself owns. Biggest fund sold almost half its shares within about a year.
Kroothawk wrote: No fund had any say in selecting the management, except stockholder Tom Kirby himself. And currently no fund holds more than 150% of what Tom Kirbyhimself owns. Biggest fund sold almost half its shares within about a year.
That's...that's simply not true Kroot.
By law, the directors of a plc must be elected by the shareholders on the basis of one share, one vote.
Now, as you quite rightly point out, Kirby has a substantial number of shares, so consequently has a commensurate amount of influence, but check the agenda for any AGM and I bet you'll see that election/re-election of the directors is on them, even if the voting process itself is perhaps somewhat of a formality, it happens.
dereksatkinson wrote: These institutions elected the directors of the company who voted in the CEO. They better know exactly what is going on. If they don't have a clue, they didn't elect the right person to represent their interests to the board of directors.
These guys will know a hell of a lot more than you'll ever see disclosed in a report published by the company or their auditors.
While they do receive more detailed reports, I still think they drink their own cool-aid and are not knowledgeable of the market.
Tom Kirby - Accountant, been at GW since 1998 (out of touch)
Kevin Rountree - Accountant, been at GW since 1998 (out of touch)
Chris Myatt - Hospice director (probably the most qualified as he's familiar with the terminally ill)
Nick Donaldson - Lawyer/Banker (probably why the IP is being pursued so much)
Elaine O’Donnell - Accountant (cares about $$, not service or quality)
Let's compare this to Hasbro
B. Goldner - At Bandai prior to Hasbro
A. Verrecchia - Hasbro since 1965
B. Anderson - Scott Paper prior to Hasbro
A. Batkin - investment firm
F. Biondi - private equity fund specializing in media
K. Bronfin - investment arm of diversified media company
J. Connors - full-service marketing, advertising and communications company
M. Garrett - international food and beverage company
L. Gersh - integrated media and merchandising company
J. Greenberg - funds transfer company
A. Hassenfeld - Hasbro for 40 years
T. Leinbach - global logistics and transportation and supply chain solutions provider
E. Phillip - a non-profit healthcare organization
To me, Hasbro has a much better board because the majority is customer focused, not a bunch of accountants.
Does GW know what's going on in the company? Yes. Do they know how to fix it? Hell no.
azreal13 wrote: So how would you interpret that several (the majority?) of the institutional stakeholders this time last year have now sold all or a substantial part of their stake, prior to the interim result that triggered all the furore?
Unless you see those institutional investors come out as give a reason for them dropping their shares, you can only speculate.
Possible explanations are...
1. They made a lot of money and wanted to take profits.
2. They didn't think their future prospects were as good.
3. They were being forced to sell to cover redemptions.
4. Another opportunity presented itself and they raised capital to participate in it.
We simply don't know why they decided to sell. It could be that they didn't like the direction or it could be something entirely unrelated. it's all speculation. You typically don't want to see insider selling but it's not the end of the world if you do. These are still normal people living normal lives. Even if they "think" something isn't going to work, that doesn't mean it wont. At the same time.. Just because institutional investors think that GW is going to make a killing, doesn't mean they will. None of these guys are holding crystal balls.
azreal13 wrote: That's...that's simply not true Kroot.
By law, the directors of a plc must be elected by the shareholders on the basis of one share, one vote.
I don't talk about theory or principle. But do you really think that a big investment fond decided that Wells should go, that Kirby should be CEO and Chair, to continue his policy of liquidating GW into the ground? Everyone with some interest in the company and a basic knowledge of economics would not have let him proceed to save their investments, but the funds only cared about maximized dividends regardless of the consequences and did not interfere with Kirby's reign, selling their shares in the meantime to Kirby's level just in case.
, but the funds only cared about maximized dividends regardless of the consequences and did not interfere with Kirby's reign, selling their shares in the meantime to Kirby's level just in case.
Dude, you need to stop because you are getting it so wrong so consistently. You are trolling and dont even realize it.
Any investment made by an investment firm with its own shareholders and direct owners to satisfy cares about the safety of the initial investment, holding onto capital gains already made and future income streams in that order. They certainly dont just care about dividend streams.
To judge the safety of the first two and the viablility of the last one they will have analysts pouring over numbers and regular meetings with management - especially if large enough to cause an issue if they dump the stock. Firms, in 99% of case, just don't invest in the manner you are talking about.
azreal13 wrote: That's...that's simply not true Kroot.
By law, the directors of a plc must be elected by the shareholders on the basis of one share, one vote.
I don't talk about theory or principle. But do you really think that a big investment fond decided that Wells should go, that Kirby should be CEO and Chair, to continue his policy of liquidating GW into the ground? Everyone with some interest in the company and a basic knowledge of economics would not have let him proceed to save their investments, but the funds only cared about maximized dividends regardless of the consequences and did not interfere with Kirby's reign, selling their shares in the meantime to Kirby's level just in case.
You can feel however you like dude, but at this point you're confusing your own prejudice for some sort of twisted fact.
No, funds have no direct influence over Kirby's, or any other GW employee's, actions, whatever they may be, but if sufficient numbers of people had fears over the direction GW was heading, then they would have an opportunity to remove him from the position.
I think perhaps you should take a time out from this thread, as it is becoming blatantly obvious that your reach is exceeding your grasp in terms of the subject matter, and coupled with your already fairly robust dislike for all things GW, you're coming over a little more "frothing loon" than I suspect you'd like.
dereksatkinson wrote: These institutions elected the directors of the company who voted in the CEO. They better know exactly what is going on. If they don't have a clue, they didn't elect the right person to represent their interests to the board of directors.
These guys will know a hell of a lot more than you'll ever see disclosed in a report published by the company or their auditors.
While they do receive more detailed reports, I still think they drink their own cool-aid and are not knowledgeable of the market.
Tom Kirby - Accountant, been at GW since 1998 (out of touch)
Kevin Rountree - Accountant, been at GW since 1998 (out of touch)
Chris Myatt - Hospice director (probably the most qualified as he's familiar with the terminally ill)
Nick Donaldson - Lawyer/Banker (probably why the IP is being pursued so much)
Elaine O’Donnell - Accountant (cares about $$, not service or quality)
Let's compare this to Hasbro
B. Goldner - At Bandai prior to Hasbro
A. Verrecchia - Hasbro since 1965
B. Anderson - Scott Paper prior to Hasbro
A. Batkin - investment firm
F. Biondi - private equity fund specializing in media
K. Bronfin - investment arm of diversified media company
J. Connors - full-service marketing, advertising and communications company
M. Garrett - international food and beverage company
L. Gersh - integrated media and merchandising company
J. Greenberg - funds transfer company
A. Hassenfeld - Hasbro for 40 years
T. Leinbach - global logistics and transportation and supply chain solutions provider
E. Phillip - a non-profit healthcare organization
To me, Hasbro has a much better board because the majority is customer focused, not a bunch of accountants.
Does GW know what's going on in the company? Yes. Do they know how to fix it? Hell no.
Neither board looks right. Hasbro has legacy members like Hassenfeld (his family put the 'has' in Hasbro). Many of the other members' professions (health care, food and beverage, paper products, funds transfer, investment firm) do not indicate that they have any special qualifications to run a toy company. I suspect that many of them are the board because of connections. It would be good to see people who know something about making good toys on the board. They could be psychologists, sculptors, engineers, etc. As it is, the board looks very much like how they practice business: make some toys in china (global logistics) and market them (marketing). The lack of competition from other companies makes this possible. Gone are the days of Kenner, Mego, Ideal, Gabriel, Galoob, etc.
GW are finding it much more difficult, as there is more competition. Certainly the other companies cannot produce plastics of the quality or quantity that GW can, but the market is not particularly concerned. The competitors that are better run (in my estimation), such as WYRD, are making great strides.
I suppose the difference between peoples point of view is based on their standpoint.
For people invested in GW plc, they want to see a 'blip' that is nothing to worry about long term.And those who have experience in the stock market can apply their experience of buying and selling habits, and make their own informed opinions based on that.
However, those people who have seen the way GW plc conducts itself in relation to its customers and independents.
May see the current drop in profits and revenue as the 'tipping point'.
Where the GW customer base has fallen( some say driven off,) to the extent where competition has a a good foot hold, and is eating into GW plc market share year on year.
Most people believe the market has been growing despite the recession.In a previous shareholder preamble Mr T Kirby said the same thing.That the (TTMG) hobby is an escape from the pressures of reality, and so is not effected by an economic down turn.
GW plc has has lost sales volumes year on year for nearly a decade.So some see this as the point of no return .Eg selling less for more money has stopped working .
And so GW plc need to adopt a different approach or continue to loose profits ...
fullheadofhair wrote: Any investment made by an investment firm with its own shareholders and direct owners to satisfy cares about the safety of the initial investment, holding onto capital gains already made and future income streams in that order. They certainly dont just care about dividend streams.
That is only correct in principle, but would you say that letting Kirby powershrink the company (including raising prices, firing sales staff, reducing opening hours, hiring for attitude instead of skill, closing HQs, no advertising, sinking sales and revenue in a growing market) is a sustainable strategy to protect your investment? I don't think so. Fact is, the biggest investor, Nomad, just burned 7.2 Mio £ or 12 Mio US$ customer money in January alone, because they let Kirby proceed. They would have lost more, if they hadn't sold almost half their shares within a year before that.
Weeble: I'll take your word for it, I've zero experience in any kind of business. It just seemed to me that the faster rate of releases, including but not limited to Knights, could rejuvenate them a bit. Especially if they're keeping the costs down, which would seem to be the case with the digital/rules releases anyway.
(I mean, really, I find it hard to believe that the rules could cost that much to develop. They are relatively unchanged from edition to edition, generally only new units need rules and those seem poorly tested anyhow, and fluff/art is copy pasted from times when the company was actually creative mostly.)
So, its not worth a cheeky buy in on expectation of a return to the prior highs?
With the faster releases/declining profits issue, im sure product price is an issue, and quality (finecast), but what else do you think it is, is it just that theyve pushed the price point too far, or are we looking at a downturn due to any number of other issues? (over saturation of products, releasing the wrong lines, poor design of rules, diminishing local community in stores, just general poor attitude towards customers, increase in competition...)?
@Sirus42.
The core problem of GW plc is is they do not have a marketing department!
After GW became a plc , the only periods of growth have been accompanied by other companies doing the marketing for GW .
M&B Games in the 1990s, and New Line Cinema and Diagnosti magazines in the 2000s.
So GW plc has grown from a small company where the developers were in touch with the customers.(Through WD etc.)
To a large corporation with the man making the decisions having NO contact with or idea who the actual customer base is or could be.
Without a marketing department to provide facts, Mr Kirby can simply make up any assumption he feels like, to back up the direction he want to go.(Generally following the path of least effort.).
Mr Kirby seems to believe targeting children with rich parents is the best business strategy for GW plc.
However, all other companies in the TTMG hobby believe great game play and value for money is what they should focus on...
Da Boss wrote: It just seemed to me that the faster rate of releases, including but not limited to Knights, could rejuvenate them a bit.
You are aware that the faster rate of releases has been in coincidence with a 10% decline in revenue and a 30% decline in profit?
Correlation is not causation. It's entirely possible that without the faster rate of releases, it could have been a 20% decline in revenue, and a 45% decline in profit.
Kroothawk wrote: I don't trust people who want anyone to bow to some unseen credentials and then continue to state that Cyprus is more relevant to European economy and GW sales than Germany.
Can we now get back to topic instead of feeding a troll?
I just want to add that Germany is bench pressing the EU economy like a boss
dereksatkinson wrote: These institutions elected the directors of the company who voted in the CEO. They better know exactly what is going on. If they don't have a clue, they didn't elect the right person to represent their interests to the board of directors.
These guys will know a hell of a lot more than you'll ever see disclosed in a report published by the company or their auditors.
While they do receive more detailed reports, I still think they drink their own cool-aid and are not knowledgeable of the market.
Tom Kirby - Accountant, been at GW since 1998 (out of touch)
Kevin Rountree - Accountant, been at GW since 1998 (out of touch)
Chris Myatt - Hospice director (probably the most qualified as he's familiar with the terminally ill)
Nick Donaldson - Lawyer/Banker (probably why the IP is being pursued so much)
Elaine O’Donnell - Accountant (cares about $$, not service or quality)
Let's compare this to Hasbro
B. Goldner - At Bandai prior to Hasbro
A. Verrecchia - Hasbro since 1965
B. Anderson - Scott Paper prior to Hasbro
A. Batkin - investment firm
F. Biondi - private equity fund specializing in media
K. Bronfin - investment arm of diversified media company
J. Connors - full-service marketing, advertising and communications company
M. Garrett - international food and beverage company
L. Gersh - integrated media and merchandising company
J. Greenberg - funds transfer company
A. Hassenfeld - Hasbro for 40 years
T. Leinbach - global logistics and transportation and supply chain solutions provider
E. Phillip - a non-profit healthcare organization
To me, Hasbro has a much better board because the majority is customer focused, not a bunch of accountants.
Does GW know what's going on in the company? Yes. Do they know how to fix it? Hell no.
Neither board looks right. Hasbro has legacy members like Hassenfeld (his family put the 'has' in Hasbro). Many of the other members' professions (health care, food and beverage, paper products, funds transfer, investment firm) do not indicate that they have any special qualifications to run a toy company. I suspect that many of them are the board because of connections. It would be good to see people who know something about making good toys on the board. They could be psychologists, sculptors, engineers, etc. As it is, the board looks very much like how they practice business: make some toys in china (global logistics) and market them (marketing). The lack of competition from other companies makes this possible. Gone are the days of Kenner, Mego, Ideal, Gabriel, Galoob, etc.
GW are finding it much more difficult, as there is more competition. Certainly the other companies cannot produce plastics of the quality or quantity that GW can, but the market is not particularly concerned. The competitors that are better run (in my estimation), such as WYRD, are making great strides.
Actully you missed a key point about the hasbro board that Barfolomew made. Their is alot of members who come from a background in customer service and marketing based industries.
The board doesn't need to know how to make the toys, they need to know how to run a toy company and have a understanding of the kinds of products they are selling. They need to understand the incorporate of customer service and the customer service approach. This is a very customer focused company, and have a board seems to reflects that. Actually having board members from different industries and backgrounds can be a very GOOD thing for a board, because it helps bring in new ideas and ways to do things.
The sculptors and psychologists actually are better kept off the board of directors, but placed in departments heads and in positions to develop new products. Putting them on the board of directors would actually be a waste of their talents and putting them in a position were they probably are not that qualified for.
GW's board only has one member who comes from a customer service background and it was in Hospice care.... The rest are all from accounting and banking backgrounds. This board dose not reflect a customer focused approach.
Lanrak wrote: @Sirus42.
The core problem of GW plc is is they do not have a marketing department!
After GW became a plc , the only periods of growth have been accompanied by other companies doing the marketing for GW .
M&B Games in the 1990s, and New Line Cinema and Diagnosti magazines in the 2000s.
So GW plc has grown from a small company where the developers were in touch with the customers.(Through WD etc.)
To a large corporation with the man making the decisions having NO contact with or idea who the actual customer base is or could be.
Without a marketing department to provide facts, Mr Kirby can simply make up any assumption he feels like, to back up the direction he want to go.(Generally following the path of least effort.).
Mr Kirby seems to believe targeting children with rich parents is the best business strategy for GW plc.
However, all other companies in the TTMG hobby believe great game play and value for money is what they should focus on...
Da Boss wrote: It just seemed to me that the faster rate of releases, including but not limited to Knights, could rejuvenate them a bit.
You are aware that the faster rate of releases has been in coincidence with a 10% decline in revenue and a 30% decline in profit?
Correlation is not causation. It's entirely possible that without the faster rate of releases, it could have been a 20% decline in revenue, and a 45% decline in profit.
Exhalt!
And in my opinion, the real reason for a soft quarter is that the economy is much weaker than the headlines suggest. Everyone seems to be completely forgetting how much liquidity is being pumped into the system. ECB, Bank of England, US Federal Reserve and the Japanese central bank are expanding their balance sheets at furious rates to keep things propped up. They aren't doing this because things are good. They are buying time.
When you actually see as many earnings reports as I do, you'd understand that what is going on with GW is not something special. They aren't an outlier. Retail did not have a good Q4 and they are trying to blame it on the weather. You know, because winter is a new thing this year.
That's today.
Compare this to Infinity and kickstarters:
Hey look, those are not at all affected by Cyprus economy, sun bursts, astrological constellations and the cattle market!
dereksatkinson wrote: And in my opinion, the real reason for a soft quarter is that the economy is much weaker than the headlines suggest. Everyone seems to be completely forgetting how much liquidity is being pumped into the system.
I guess "quarter" is pro-speak for half a year and "soft" for "desastrous", right? And because the states make saving money pointless, all people are now saving money instead of spending it, right?
In positive GW news, they appear to be Ukrainian proof. They are maintaining the same rate of decay to share price after Putin's hankerin' to tour Sevastopol.
loki old fart wrote: It was the floods.
Every body knows England ends at watford gap. GW watford was closed as usual. and south of there was flooded
You know that Watford Gap and Watford are 66 miles apart right?
Unless that was a very subtle commentary on some of the macroeconomic factors that have been bandied about in this topic (and if it wasn't I wish it had been)
One thing to keep in mind when comparing GW's performance to the performance of other, newer companies is that the newer companies are still affected by the fact that they are, well, new.
Newer, smaller companies should always have returns that are, by percentages, much greater than a larger, more established company. A new company that goes from making $100K one year to $200K the next experiences a 100% increase in revenue, while an older company that made $1 Million one year and then $900K the next experienced a 10% reduction. The bigger company still sold a lot more stuff and made a lot more profit.
I wish that PP were publicly traded so we could see what their actual numbers were, because they're really the only tabletop wargame that is relatively comparable to GW in that they have been around for a good amount of time and have a strong, established market presence.
I think what is more telling is that people had enough of their own money to sink $60MM in kick starter for games instead of what's currently established. Some portion of that is money GW could of had if they were more responsive to their player base.
I agree.
If GW plc actually knew who would buy stuff from them, and what they wanted. GW plc could make informed business decisions and plan to grow their market share.
But while they think they are selling toy soldiers to children, and writing rules specifically for people who never get around to play, or do not care when they do.(Collectors and children.)
They will continue to lose sales volumes, and now start to loose profit as well.
Unless they actually address the massive disconnect with the wider customer base. GW plc is going to continue its downward spiral.
Saldiven wrote: One thing to keep in mind when comparing GW's performance to the performance of other, newer companies is that the newer companies are still affected by the fact that they are, well, new.
Newer, smaller companies should always have returns that are, by percentages, much greater than a larger, more established company. A new company that goes from making $100K one year to $200K the next experiences a 100% increase in revenue, while an older company that made $1 Million one year and then $900K the next experienced a 10% reduction. The bigger company still sold a lot more stuff and made a lot more profit.
I wish that PP were publicly traded so we could see what their actual numbers were, because they're really the only tabletop wargame that is relatively comparable to GW in that they have been around for a good amount of time and have a strong, established market presence.
I can't remember where I saw this but it has been stated on Dakka that PP had a turnover of approximately $14-15M last year. I believe this cam from a discussion at a convention.
So to underline the point that Kroot didn't realise he was making, even if my memory od $5M out, the nearest competitor that GW has in tabletop wargaming does less than 10% of GW's turnover.
Again I'm struggling to remember but I believe the likes of Battlefront and Corvus Belli turnover less than half of this amount.
That's today.
Compare this to Infinity and kickstarters:
Hey look, those are not at all affected by Cyprus economy, sun bursts, astrological constellations and the cattle market!
dereksatkinson wrote: And in my opinion, the real reason for a soft quarter is that the economy is much weaker than the headlines suggest. Everyone seems to be completely forgetting how much liquidity is being pumped into the system.
I guess "quarter" is pro-speak for half a year and "soft" for "desastrous", right? And because the states make saving money pointless, all people are now saving money instead of spending it, right?
The Corvus Belli chart is through 2012. Irrelevant.
And I'm sure that all those people using kickstarter aren't just for tabletop wargames. Maybe you should check the glossary. lol
As for sunbursts, constellations and the cattle market... I think you probably need to go take a timeout because the health of the European economy is most certainly relevant to GW's earnings. I get that you are a little upset that it's repeatedly been proven wrong throughout this thread but seriously dude you have no idea what you are talking about. The discussions about rights of board members, share holders and then the whole automatic buys thing should have made it abundantly clear you need to step back.
You are taking advertising pamphlet material and trying to use it as evidence that the consumer isn't struggling? Seriously?
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Shotgun wrote: In positive GW news, they appear to be Ukrainian proof. They are maintaining the same rate of decay to share price after Putin's hankerin' to tour Sevastopol.
Ukraine is another failed state. Their bankruptcy could cause problems for Western banks though so keep that in mind.
That's today.
Compare this to Infinity and kickstarters:
Hey look, those are not at all affected by Cyprus economy, sun bursts, astrological constellations and the cattle market!
dereksatkinson wrote: And in my opinion, the real reason for a soft quarter is that the economy is much weaker than the headlines suggest. Everyone seems to be completely forgetting how much liquidity is being pumped into the system.
I guess "quarter" is pro-speak for half a year and "soft" for "desastrous", right? And because the states make saving money pointless, all people are now saving money instead of spending it, right?
The Corvus Belli chart is through 2012. Irrelevant.
And I'm sure that all those people using kickstarter aren't just for tabletop wargames. Maybe you should check the glossary. lol
As for sunbursts, constellations and the cattle market... I think you probably need to go take a timeout because the health of the European economy is most certainly relevant to GW's earnings. I get that you are a little upset that it's repeatedly been proven wrong throughout this thread but seriously dude you have no idea what you are talking about. The discussions about rights of board members, share holders and then the whole automatic buys thing should have made it abundantly clear you need to step back.
You are taking advertising pamphlet material and trying to use it as evidence that the consumer isn't struggling? Seriously?
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Shotgun wrote: In positive GW news, they appear to be Ukrainian proof. They are maintaining the same rate of decay to share price after Putin's hankerin' to tour Sevastopol.
Ukraine is another failed state. Their bankruptcy could cause problems for Western banks though so keep that in mind.
Name the one country where GW has major sales, that isn't bankrupt
That's today.
Compare this to Infinity and kickstarters:
Hey look, those are not at all affected by Cyprus economy, sun bursts, astrological constellations and the cattle market!
dereksatkinson wrote: And in my opinion, the real reason for a soft quarter is that the economy is much weaker than the headlines suggest. Everyone seems to be completely forgetting how much liquidity is being pumped into the system.
I guess "quarter" is pro-speak for half a year and "soft" for "desastrous", right? And because the states make saving money pointless, all people are now saving money instead of spending it, right?
The Corvus Belli chart is through 2012. Irrelevant.
Without numbers, it is totally irrelevant, a point I've made before, but it still gets trotted out like it means something.
And I'm sure that all those people using kickstarter aren't just for tabletop wargames. Maybe you should check the glossary. lol
This is why you should be careful when using snark.
How on earth can a chart, produced by Kickstarter, showing the amount of money pledged by it's users on tabletop games, be dismissed like this when it provides relevant evidence that money is being spent, worldwide, and in increasing quantities, in the same sector that GW is suffering declining revenue in?
This is just another example of you dismissing evidence that doesn't fit with your argument.
Forgive me for asking a question that may have already been asked, and forgive me for being incredibly ignorant in regards to the stock market.... but isn't a drop from a share price of 850 on Oct 1st 2013 to a share price of 475(ish) as of March 3rd 2014 quite drastic? That's a drop of almost half of what it was in.... 5 months?
Is this a fairly typical rise and fall of GW stocks based on past years or is it the result of more recent mistakes on GW's part?
Could anyone who knows a little better try and filter the info in an attempt to educate us "laymans" out there?
notprop wrote: So to underline the point that Kroot didn't realise he was making, even if my memory od $5M out, the nearest competitor that GW has in tabletop wargaming does less than 10% of GW's turnover.
Again I'm struggling to remember but I believe the likes of Battlefront and Corvus Belli turnover less than half of this amount.
So they have 1 competitor with approx 10% of the turnover, and at least 2 more with 5% of the turn over. But there are literally hundreds of other competitors appearing and seeming to grow, some of which must also be making significant percentages of GW's turnover whilst still growing (from the top of my head: Warlord, Mantic, Gripping Beast, Reaper) The market in total must have total revenues of at least double that of GW (at wild estimation), so wilst GW is still the biggest and has some level of residual market domination it's shrinking in what's obviously a growing market.
The Corvus Belli chart is through 2012. Irrelevant.
You're pretty quick to dismiss stuff that doesn't fit your point. In pure 2014 terms it's not very relevant, but if you compare the huge growth there to GW in the same period (essentially none), you can certainly get the impression that everyone is outgrowing GW at a significant percentage rate. Probably not in absolute terms but it shows a pretty healthy market over the last few years.
To be honest I don't think I've seen any real evidence for a shrinking or stagnating of the gaming market except from GW.
And I'm sure that all those people using kickstarter aren't just for tabletop wargames. Maybe you should check the glossary. lol
They are, they just the 1 Billion dollar mark. But that chart was specifically for tabletop gaming. Now that'll cover boardgames as well as any overlaps, but again it's showing a lot of money being spent speculatively in that market, some of which is in direct competition to GW (the Mantic stuff, for instance) as well as lots of indirect competition (like Zombicide). I've personally dropped about $1000 onto gaming Kickstarters in the last couple of years that may have gone to GW.
You are taking advertising pamphlet material and trying to use it as evidence that the consumer isn't struggling? Seriously?
The consumers aren't all struggling though; retail sales in GW's home market has started increasing again. Confidence and real terms income are still down on 7 years ago but it's picking up.
Anyway, what do you make of the market in general, and what would you need to see to concede that the gaming market (outside of GW) is doing pretty well?
Just for the record, the 52 week low dropped another 10p today to 475.00p, started at 500p, so with -25p the biggest drop per day since the big avalanche, some of it recovered at the end of the day though.
JaxnFury wrote: Forgive me for asking a question that may have already been asked, and forgive me for being incredibly ignorant in regards to the stock market.... but isn't a drop from a share price of 850 on Oct 1st 2013 to a share price of 475(ish) as of March 3rd 2014 quite drastic? That's a drop of almost half of what it was in.... 5 months?
Is this a fairly typical rise and fall of GW stocks based on past years or is it the result of more recent mistakes on GW's part?
Could anyone who knows a little better try and filter the info in an attempt to educate us "laymans" out there?
Yes and no.
It is undoubtedly a substantial drop, but it isn't unprecedented in GW's history.
Essentially it is linked to a lack of dividend being paid to shareholders because of a disappointing set of half-year results. Therefore investors who were holding stock purely for the dividend yield may have chosen to sell the stock and take a profit on what they were worth, others may have felt this was the beginning of a longer term slide and decided to cash in at what they felt was the top of the market. Selling shares drives the price down, and in this case the price continued to fall until we reach the current levels. Anyone holding stock now may well face losing money if they sell, have a longer term plan, or work for GW.
The wider debate isn't really focused in the share price, more the underlying factors that caused the disappointing report that triggered the fall.
So with the stock continuing to slip the way it is and GWs fondness for tight lipped policies should we expect to see the stock continue to slide down until GW give their full year report?
My understanding of the situation is that confidence in the stock is down which means people hold or sell, not buy. Selling lowers confidence further and drives the stock down which prompts more sales, and short of GW actually talking to their investors or someone buying up a whole bunch of stock* nothing about the situation will change.
*And at this point the only reasons I can think of to buy is because its cheap, but that would require it to level out and maintain the appearance of having hit bottom, or to try and buy a majority and take over.
jonolikespie wrote: So with the stock continuing to slip the way it is and GWs fondness for tight lipped policies should we expect to see the stock continue to slide down until GW give their full year report?
My understanding of the situation is that confidence in the stock is down which means people hold or sell, not buy. Selling lowers confidence further and drives the stock down which prompts more sales, and short of GW actually talking to their investors or someone buying up a whole bunch of stock* nothing about the situation will change.
*And at this point the only reasons I can think of to buy is because its cheap, but that would require it to level out and maintain the appearance of having hit bottom, or to try and buy a majority and take over.
Well one thing to remember is for the most part stock going up or down won't effect the operation of GW. It only will effect GW unless a larger company comes along and use the lower price to start picking up alot of stock or tries to buy out GW stock.
Witch seems to be a issue GW cares about alot, since I seem to recall they hired a lady who specializes thows kinds of situations last year. So it seems GW has been planning for this situation.
Saldiven wrote: One thing to keep in mind when comparing GW's performance to the performance of other, newer companies is that the newer companies are still affected by the fact that they are, well, new.
Newer, smaller companies should always have returns that are, by percentages, much greater than a larger, more established company. A new company that goes from making $100K one year to $200K the next experiences a 100% increase in revenue, while an older company that made $1 Million one year and then $900K the next experienced a 10% reduction. The bigger company still sold a lot more stuff and made a lot more profit.
I wish that PP were publicly traded so we could see what their actual numbers were, because they're really the only tabletop wargame that is relatively comparable to GW in that they have been around for a good amount of time and have a strong, established market presence.
I can't remember where I saw this but it has been stated on Dakka that PP had a turnover of approximately $14-15M last year. I believe this cam from a discussion at a convention.
So to underline the point that Kroot didn't realise he was making, even if my memory od $5M out, the nearest competitor that GW has in tabletop wargaming does less than 10% of GW's turnover.
Again I'm struggling to remember but I believe the likes of Battlefront and Corvus Belli turnover less than half of this amount.
Just to reinforce that number, ran into the ex-PP employee a few weeks ago who gave me their 2011 numbers ($12 - $13MM) a while back. We were talking various things and he mentioned that PP's numbers had remained pretty flat since he left and they were about matching inflation. So that $14-15MM sounds close.
As for GW, it will continue it's downward trend price wise till it's annual report. Might be an uptick right before by some betting types.
Though while not an accurate indicator, new product seems to be selling better this year than last. The local stores are actually selling out of new material. Hadn't seen that for over a year before the Hobbit bomb dropped.
Of course, if bullets start flying in Ukraine, expect it drop like a rock with the rest of the stock market.
silent25 wrote: Though while not an accurate indicator, new product seems to be selling better this year than last. The local stores are actually selling out of new material. Hadn't seen that for over a year before the Hobbit bomb dropped.
Are they selling more or stocking less? The report indicates that sales are down, which seems to be confirmed by independents.
silent25 wrote: Though while not an accurate indicator, new product seems to be selling better this year than last. The local stores are actually selling out of new material. Hadn't seen that for over a year before the Hobbit bomb dropped.
Are they selling more or stocking less? The report indicates that sales are down, which seems to be confirmed by independents.
Selling out of a product is not a reliable indicator of demand or sales. Don't forget, we saw similar situations when the Tau and Eldar were released; it wasn't that demand and sales were any greater than normal (although I'm sure they sold a lot of them) but rather there was quite a clusterfeth in supply. It ended up with a lot of independents not getting nearly any of the stuff they ordered. There were various conspiracy theories abound as to whether it was a deliberate move on GW's part to undermine independents. Who knows? But at the very least, it points to poor logistical control. From what I can gather this time around, the lack of product in shops seems to be down to a supply issue rather than hordes of customers snapping the kits up.
Dereksatkinson - I think a lot of this discussion comes down to whether people want to see GW 'rewarded' for what a lot of the veteran fans view as poor treatment on their part. Finecast, RoW bans, Games day/tournament cuts, staff cuts, price rises, post purchase 'DLC'.. all of these things over the past few years have arguably meant that the GW customer now gets less 'value' than they have at any point in the past, and seemingly from a company that doesn't care.
So if these measures do lead to a few fat men smoking cigars in a jacuzzi full of champagne, with more of these things to come where might that lead? I think that's why so many long-term fans have hopped on the bandwagon here.. they are hoping that GW will finally see that valuing their existing customers is important, and might come to the realisation that their long term fans have value, and start to amend their policies accordingly.
GW having only one exec who has a background in customer service, and them having come from working with hospices though is pretty funny.. (and would certainly explain a lot of things!)
notprop wrote:It's more about the narrative than the rules...
Lol...
dereksatkinson wrote:
Ukraine is another failed state. Their bankruptcy could cause problems for Western banks though so keep that in mind.
Although IT workers in the UK might then find it slightly easier to get a job, depending on what happens..
Herzlos wrote: The consumers aren't all struggling though; retail sales in GW's home market has started increasing again. Confidence and real terms income are still down on 7 years ago but it's picking up.
Anyway, what do you make of the market in general, and what would you need to see to concede that the gaming market (outside of GW) is doing pretty well?
It's already been established that you guys are looking at trailing indicators while I've been looking at leading indicators. Leading indicators like Goldman's Global Leading Index is showing the global economy in slowdown mode. You wont even hear on the news that we are in a recession till 3 quarters after you've already been in one. So what good does that do you? You can point to retail sales but I can point to disposable income. Unless you see a major spike up there, discretionary spending is going to go through the floor. An already indebted consumer has it's lowest income:debt ratio since 07. It's going to be bloody when it finally hits.
Pacific wrote: Dereksatkinson - I think a lot of this discussion comes down to whether people want to see GW 'rewarded' for what a lot of the veteran fans view as poor treatment on their part. Finecast, RoW bans, Games day/tournament cuts, staff cuts, price rises, post purchase 'DLC'.. all of these things over the past few years have arguably meant that the GW customer now gets less 'value' than they have at any point in the past, and seemingly from a company that doesn't care.
So if these measures do lead to a few fat men smoking cigars in a jacuzzi full of champagne, with more of these things to come where might that lead? I think that's why so many long-term fans have hopped on the bandwagon here.. they are hoping that GW will finally see that valuing their existing customers is important, and might come to the realisation that their long term fans have value, and start to amend their policies accordingly.
GW having only one exec who has a background in customer service, and them having come from working with hospices though is pretty funny.. (and would certainly explain a lot of things!)
You basically just explained exactly what the problem with this type of discussion is. What you guys are saying is purely vengefully hoping that your perceived enemy will lose money. GW's stock price isn't a reflection of the customer base's feelings. Otherwise, you wouldn't have had the move from 115 to 830. Mind you, I already stated that I was bearish on the stock. I even stated in this thread GAW had no support till around 460 which I don't think will be the final low either.
You can be critical and make fun of the makeup of the board of directors all you want but you didn't elect them. The stakeholders in the company did. They were elected by institutional investors and they are the ones whose opinions matter when it comes to determining the price of the shares.
You basically just explained exactly what the problem with this type of discussion is. What you guys are saying is purely vengefully hoping that your perceived enemy will lose money. GW's stock price isn't a reflection of the customer base's feelings.
Barfolomew wrote: [quote=dereksatkinson 578355 6586674 null
To me, Hasbro has a much better board because the majority is customer focused, not a bunch of accountants.
Does GW know what's going on in the company? Yes. Do they know how to fix it? Hell no.
Is that why Hasbro's share performance (blue) over thast 5 years is significantly worse than that of GAW?
Or, for that matter, is that why the FTSE All Share performance (Green) is worse than that of GAW?
azreal13 wrote: Oh look, Oblivion trotting out the wholly inappropriate Hasbro comparison again.
Hasbro are so far ahead of GW in size, they behave in an entirely different way, as I mentioned the last time you tried to compare them.
You've missed the point. The graph is in response to a post commenting how Hasbro are doing so much better than GAW.
I provided facts; I know that's not as thrilling as vague assertions to the people who make those assertions.
Share price is not necessarily indicative of how a company is "doing."
Hasbro's 2014 revenue was $4.08 Billion dollars; I'd be surprised if GW has had that much revenue in all the time since they went public. Hasbro's earnings per diluted share were $2.83 in 2013, while GW's were under a dollar.
But, like azreal13 points out, comparing the two is kind of silly. The two companies are so dramatically different in size, scope, market presence, name recognition, etc., that it's just silly to compare the two.
Also, I have to point out another huge failing in the chart you showed. The chart is in percentages, not actual currency. Additionally, it's giving the GW share price in Great Britain pence and the Hasbro price in US dollars. If you convert the GW share price into US dollars, the figure is currently $7.95.
Notice the units that each one reports the share price is based on the fact that GW is on the London stock exchange, not New York, and Hasbro is on the New York exchange.
loki old fart wrote: It was the floods.
Every body knows England ends at watford gap. GW watford was closed as usual. and south of there was flooded
You know that Watford Gap and Watford are 66 miles apart right?
Unless that was a very subtle commentary on some of the macroeconomic factors that have been bandied about in this topic (and if it wasn't I wish it had been)
Yes I know. I used to be a recovery driver. I can even find places without a sat nav.
azreal13 wrote: Oh look, Oblivion trotting out the wholly inappropriate Hasbro comparison again.
Hasbro are so far ahead of GW in size, they behave in an entirely different way, as I mentioned the last time you tried to compare them.
You've missed the point. The graph is in response to a post commenting how Hasbro are doing so much better than GAW.
I provided facts; I know that's not as thrilling as vague assertions to the people who make those assertions.
Comparing a company whose individual share valuation is in excess of 10x GW's? Whose market cap is calculated in the billions, rather than millions?
You know that Corvus Belli growth chart that is completely irrelevant because it doesn't show any numbers beyond year on year growth as a percentage (and making £2 this year over £1 last year is 100% growth! Good Times!) This is barely more relevant. Comparing a small PLC like GW against the established, blue chip players whose share price growth will be much smaller in percentage terms is at best naive, if not disingenuous.
EDIT
Just to clarify a little further, it would take less than 2% (I think, my maths is rough and ready with about three tabs open to have all the info in front of me) increase in Hasbro share price to add a whole GW's worth of value to their total, that is the gulf between the two, you're technically comparing dogs here, but GW is a Chihuahua, Hasbro is a Great Dane.
It's already been established that you guys are looking at trailing indicators while I've been looking at leading indicators. Leading indicators like Goldman's Global Leading Index is showing the global economy in slowdown mode. You wont even hear on the news that we are in a recession till 3 quarters after you've already been in one. So what good does that do you? You can point to retail sales but I can point to disposable income. Unless you see a major spike up there, discretionary spending is going to go through the floor. An already indebted consumer has it's lowest income:debt ratio since 07. It's going to be bloody when it finally hits.
Fair enough, I agree with most of that. On a side note, when do you think the fan is getting covered
It's already been established that you guys are looking at trailing indicators while I've been looking at leading indicators. Leading indicators like Goldman's Global Leading Index is showing the global economy in slowdown mode. You wont even hear on the news that we are in a recession till 3 quarters after you've already been in one. So what good does that do you? You can point to retail sales but I can point to disposable income. Unless you see a major spike up there, discretionary spending is going to go through the floor. An already indebted consumer has it's lowest income:debt ratio since 07. It's going to be bloody when it finally hits.
Fair enough, I agree with most of that. On a side note, when do you think the fan is getting covered
You do realise that he is talking about the same leading indicators that failed spectacularly in 2008 and plunged the world's economy in the gakky state that it is now, right?
I'd put as much faith in those as I do in the tarot reader in our public channel morning show...
It's already been established that you guys are looking at trailing indicators while I've been looking at leading indicators. Leading indicators like Goldman's Global Leading Index is showing the global economy in slowdown mode. You wont even hear on the news that we are in a recession till 3 quarters after you've already been in one. So what good does that do you? You can point to retail sales but I can point to disposable income. Unless you see a major spike up there, discretionary spending is going to go through the floor. An already indebted consumer has it's lowest income:debt ratio since 07. It's going to be bloody when it finally hits.
Fair enough, I agree with most of that. On a side note, when do you think the fan is getting covered
You do realise that he is talking about the same leading indicators that failed spectacularly in 2008 and plunged the world's economy in the gakky state that it is now, right?
I'd put as much faith in those as I do in the tarot reader in our public channel morning show...
There were multiple people predicting the events that led to the recession, but people just chose to ignore them.
Share price is not necessarily indicative of how a company is "doing."
Hasbro's 2014 revenue was $4.08 Billion dollars; I'd be surprised if GW has had that much revenue in all the time since they went public. Hasbro's earnings per diluted share were $2.83 in 2013, while GW's were under a dollar.
Hasbro is a bigger company than GW? You don't say. If you're assessing the quality of management - as suggested by the original post referring to Hasbro - it's percentage growth you need to look at, not size. If you inherit a big company and shrink it, you're not as good a manager as someone who inherits a small company and grows it, even if your revenue is higher.
If you don't want to compare GW with Hasbro, compare them with the FTSE all share - this reflects the general growth (or not) in the economy over the same period. In that context, they're not doing that badly. (altho of course the recent trend is bad).
Share price is not necessarily indicative of how a company is "doing."
Hasbro's 2014 revenue was $4.08 Billion dollars; I'd be surprised if GW has had that much revenue in all the time since they went public. Hasbro's earnings per diluted share were $2.83 in 2013, while GW's were under a dollar.
Hasbro is a bigger company than GW? You don't say. If you're assessing the quality of management - as suggested by the original post referring to Hasbro - it's percentage growth you need to look at, not size. If you inherit a big company and shrink it, you're not as good a manager as someone who inherits a small company and grows it, even if your revenue is higher.
If you don't want to compare GW with Hasbro, compare them with the FTSE all share - this reflects the general growth (or not) in the economy over the same period. In that context, they're not doing that badly. (altho of course the recent trend is bad).
No offense, but you're demonstrating a fundamental lack of understanding of what's going on.
When you're already one of the huge market leaders in an industry, it is IMPOSSIBLE to have the same kind of percentage growth figures as a much smaller company. Smaller companies should ALWAYS have significantly larger percentage growth figures than larger, more well established companies.
A CEO who leads Hasbro to a 5% increase in revenue is infinitely better than a CEO who leads GW to a 20% increase in revenue because GW has a significantly higher potential for growth than does Hasbro. For Hasbro to experience a 5% increase in revenue, it would have to increase revenue by $200 Million; for GW to experience a 20% increase in revenue, they would only have to increase sales by $44 Million. A smaller company like GW has the opportunity to expand into markets where they do not currently have a significant presence; Hasbro has a significant presence in virtually every meaningful market on the planet. That right there points out how smaller companies have an easier time to make larger percentage growth figures than larger companies.
Again, as has been pointed out on multiple occassions, trying to compare the financials of GW and Hasbro is like you trying to compare your financials to Warren Buffett.
And, lastly, the chart you posted doesn't have anything to do with the "growth in the economy." It's stock prices, that's it. It's not comparing relative revenues, ROI figures, asset figures, or anything else. It's stock prices. And, if you adjust the GW figure to USD rather than insisting on keeping the calculation using percentages, then the GW line of the graph would be an insignificang and volatile track meandering around way down at the bottom of the chart.
Even if you could compare GW to Hasbro, this is would the YTD numbers look this year.
GW highest price this year was 723 which is $12.07 USD. It's lowest price is 477 which is $7.96 and that's today. This means GW has lost 34% of it's value from it's peak. If one were to draw a line on the GW stock price trend, it would show a downward trend. GW's 1 year trend looks flat or as curve which is going down, while it's 5 year has been upwards, with what looks like a down turn now.
Hasbro's highest price this year was $55, today, with a low of $48. Even at $48 it only lost 13% of it's value. With a trend line, it is currently trending up, recovering from it's previous low. If you look at the 1 year and 5 year graph, it shows a trend up.
loki old fart wrote: Fair enough, I agree with most of that. On a side note, when do you think the fan is getting covered
Depends on what you mean by covered.. If you mean that the markets head lower, it could be any day now. We could have a 20% correction in as little as 2-3 months. That isn't a prediction, that is just a mathematical certainty that we will have to have a correction sooner rather than later. Rallies eventually run out of steam.
If you are talking when it will be obvious that things are crappy, I don't think you will have to wait too long. I would expect it some time this year but I don't have a crystal ball. If you want to know if the economy get out of it's funk, that is going to be much longer IMO. Likely going to require a complete leveling where debts are written off in mass. 08 on steroids.
Saldiven wrote: There were multiple people predicting the events that led to the recession, but people just chose to ignore them.
I am on record several hundred times. With Oil, Gold and the overall economy. I mentioned this earlier in the thread that you could find my comments under the screenname derekatkinson
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azreal13 wrote: Comparing a company whose individual share valuation is in excess of 10x GW's? Whose market cap is calculated in the billions, rather than millions?
You know that Corvus Belli growth chart that is completely irrelevant because it doesn't show any numbers beyond year on year growth as a percentage (and making £2 this year over £1 last year is 100% growth! Good Times!) This is barely more relevant. Comparing a small PLC like GW against the established, blue chip players whose share price growth will be much smaller in percentage terms is at best naive, if not disingenuous.
Also they are in different markets in all honesty..
Well, yes and no, Hasbro own WOTC, so have an interest in the market sector, but don't have a bona fide miniatures wargame in their portfolio. (Unless you get fairly liberal with that definition)
The point that was being attempted is that they are often held up as the potential saviours of GW and the most likely to attempt a buyout, yet their own share performance was below GW's even after the drop.
loki old fart wrote: Fair enough, I agree with most of that. On a side note, when do you think the fan is getting covered
Depends on what you mean by covered.. If you mean that the markets head lower, it could be any day now. We could have a 20% correction in as little as 2-3 months. That isn't a prediction, that is just a mathematical certainty that we will have to have a correction sooner rather than later. Rallies eventually run out of steam.
If you are talking when it will be obvious that things are crappy, I don't think you will have to wait too long. I would expect it some time this year but I don't have a crystal ball. If you want to know if the economy get out of it's funk, that is going to be much longer IMO. Likely going to require a complete leveling where debts are written off in mass. 08 on steroids.
correction, What a lovely word, you can hide a multitude of sins in that word
Please, folks - let us stop arguing about how fish bladders might be employed to prevent earthquakes, or how Cypriot youth employment impacts a British toy company.
This argument has been spinning in circles - ignore it, it has a fixed axis, and is going nowhere.
The drop in GW stock prices is a reflection, and only a reflection, of how GW - the company, not the stock - is doing.
GW didn't have a dividend - so stock holders are unloading, and likely will continue doing so until the next report.
Then, if GW once again passes on handing out dividends... the stock might (might) go into freefall again, with more auto sells kicking in.
I am of the opinion that GW has been too eager to hand out dividends in the past - that the funds might have been used to better purpose - from advertising, to putting more models in a box, to dropping the prices of the boxes, whichever makes you happy.
Until that next report... we are only guessing - accurately in some cases, dead wrong in others - but still only guessing.
At this point... I really would have difficulty caring less as to how GW is doing - I am much more concerned with how a complete collapse of GW would hurt the supporting companies.
Heck - the Knight is the first model by GW that has interested me in over a year, and even there, I have no real intent to ever use it in a game of WH40K. (The closest that I have come to playing WH40K in two years is Necromunda.)
And I consider having interest in that one model to be a vast improvement over my feelings in the last two years.
As many have said - it is not the prices exactly that are hurting GW sales - it is perceived value for money. The Knight is expensive, but it looks to be decent value for that price.
I have much the same feeling about their terrain.
So, yeah, I intend to wait and see - maybe buy a Knight, unless I decide to get a WARMACHINE Colossal or the Dreamforge Mortis instead.
And in the meanwhile, I will ignore most of GW's releases, and continue to buy from other companies.... which is a part of what is causing GW's problems - I have no need and little desire to buy their products at this point in time.
I have a hunch, why CEO Tom Kirby was so eager to give shareholder Tom Kirby 1 Mio £ dividends per year and why Chairman Tom Kirby approved this Half a year ago in the annual report, Tom Kirby stated he saw no reasonable way to invest about 20 Mio £ within the company. Now he has to forgo his own dividend and risk a share price avalanche (which then took place). Things must be so dire that even he can't hide it anymore to the shareholders.
Herzlos wrote: The consumers aren't all struggling though; retail sales in GW's home market has started increasing again. Confidence and real terms income are still down on 7 years ago but it's picking up.
Anyway, what do you make of the market in general, and what would you need to see to concede that the gaming market (outside of GW) is doing pretty well?
It's already been established that you guys are looking at trailing indicators while I've been looking at leading indicators. Leading indicators like Goldman's Global Leading Index is showing the global economy in slowdown mode. You wont even hear on the news that we are in a recession till 3 quarters after you've already been in one. So what good does that do you? You can point to retail sales but I can point to disposable income. Unless you see a major spike up there, discretionary spending is going to go through the floor. An already indebted consumer has it's lowest income:debt ratio since 07. It's going to be bloody when it finally hits.
Maybe I don't understand this, but you're saying that the drop in GW's share price is because the markets are about to collapse in the future, and that they are shrinking because people are starting to feel the squeeze again?
If that was the case, wouldn't the same thing be impacting everyone else? For instance, Wayland Games, where games sales are up (just not GW), or the stock market in general?
I certainly agree that if we drop into another recession it'll be a bad one, but from where I stand (someone in the UK with little global awareness) confidence is still building (even if it shouldn't). It is all cyclical and we seem to decline every 10 years or so meaning that we're going to be due another one soon.
Herzlos wrote: The consumers aren't all struggling though; retail sales in GW's home market has started increasing again. Confidence and real terms income are still down on 7 years ago but it's picking up.
Anyway, what do you make of the market in general, and what would you need to see to concede that the gaming market (outside of GW) is doing pretty well?
It's already been established that you guys are looking at trailing indicators while I've been looking at leading indicators. Leading indicators like Goldman's Global Leading Index is showing the global economy in slowdown mode. You wont even hear on the news that we are in a recession till 3 quarters after you've already been in one. So what good does that do you? You can point to retail sales but I can point to disposable income. Unless you see a major spike up there, discretionary spending is going to go through the floor. An already indebted consumer has it's lowest income:debt ratio since 07. It's going to be bloody when it finally hits.
Maybe I don't understand this, but you're saying that the drop in GW's share price is because the markets are about to collapse in the future, and that they are shrinking because people are starting to feel the squeeze again?
If that was the case, wouldn't the same thing be impacting everyone else? For instance, Wayland Games, where games sales are up (just not GW), or the stock market in general?
I certainly agree that if we drop into another recession it'll be a bad one, but from where I stand (someone in the UK with little global awareness) confidence is still building (even if it shouldn't). It is all cyclical and we seem to decline every 10 years or so meaning that we're going to be due another one soon.
I think that is the general trend. People are feeling the pinch. And are reluctant to give up their hobby(why should they). And are buying models with perceived better value, GW's pricing isn't helping here. This would explain why other companies are doing better.
Herzlos wrote: Maybe I don't understand this, but you're saying that the drop in GW's share price is because the markets are about to collapse in the future, and that they are shrinking because people are starting to feel the squeeze again?
If that was the case, wouldn't the same thing be impacting everyone else? For instance, Wayland Games, where games sales are up (just not GW), or the stock market in general?
I can't speak for Wayland Games' sales or how they do their accounting. It is worth noting though that historically, GW has shown to be very sensitive to changes in economic conditions and their share price dropped ahead of each of the past 2 market crashes. Each time they bottomed out before the indexes. Since they are a specialty niche market retailer, that's how i'd expect their chart to move.
I indicated earlier that leading indicators are basically saying that we are already seeing a slowdown. The stock market is already showing major divergences. I showed you guys what a RSI divergence was and how it signals that we are setup for a decline. That's not the only negative divergence from a technical perspective either. I could go into market breadth, new hi/new lows and volume analysis but that is way too deep of a discussion. If I find a good article, i'll forward it over.
Now, I have mentioned that disposable income is showing that the consumer is losing ground and will likely have to cut back on spending. Zerohedge posted this article this morning that touches on a series of economic indicators that are showing that this "recovery" isn't real and we are actually in a decline already. Consumers are currently digging themselves a hole and their increases in income and spending have not outpaced inflation. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-05/what-needs-happen-we-see-big-recovery
I'm sure you can find another indicator that says "everything is okay" just like people could from 2007 all the way to the summer of 2008. This is basically a muddy water dilemma at which point you need to get context about where you are in the cycle and make a determination about what is more consistent with historical precedence. It is my opinion that timing wise we are already beyond the average time frame for a cyclical recovery and the market is currently priced to perfection. The problem is that we are NOT in a perfect world. If anything goes wrong, you end up with air pockets and a collapse in asset prices. If you were an adult during the last cyclical decline, you should know by now that small unrelated things become big world events because of this phenomenon.
This time isn't different. I don't know what it will be next time but I do know the banks are levered, the consumer is levered and governments are levered to the hilt while rates are at historic lows. That's a recipe for disaster.
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loki old fart wrote: I think that is the general trend. People are feeling the pinch. And are reluctant to give up their hobby(why should they). And are buying models with perceived better value, GW's pricing isn't helping here. This would explain why other companies are doing better.
Or maybe they are playing games with their revenue numbers to make things look better than they actually are while GW is recognizing expenses/costs to clean up their balance sheet. The reason the CEO gave for why they paid out the dividend tells you that they thought things were going to be gakky and you are better off putting your money elsewhere. Meanwhile their competition is spending money like crazy and expanding into the tail end of the cycle.
Herzlos wrote: Maybe I don't understand this, but you're saying that the drop in GW's share price is because the markets are about to collapse in the future, and that they are shrinking because people are starting to feel the squeeze again?
If that was the case, wouldn't the same thing be impacting everyone else? For instance, Wayland Games, where games sales are up (just not GW), or the stock market in general?
I can't speak for Wayland Games' sales or how they do their accounting. It is worth noting though that historically, GW has shown to be very sensitive to changes in economic conditions and their share price dropped ahead of each of the past 2 market crashes. Each time they bottomed out before the indexes. Since they are a specialty niche market retailer, that's how i'd expect their chart to move.
The same GW that claimed to be recession proof in its financial statements?
Maybe the previous dips happen to land near market depressions, but they also happen to land after internal booms have ended, namely the LOTR franchise in ~2005-6 (when the economy didn't tank here until 2007 - I know since I bought a house at the absolute peak and haven't caught up yet), after the 3rd movie buzz (released in 2003) died down and (I think) the MB games partnership around 2000 (I don't remember that very well).
Looking at the stock price I don't see anything to indicate that they are sensitive to changes in economic condition at all.
As to Wayland Games, it doesn't matter too much how they do their accounting; they are experiencing growth that isn't coming from GW (according to the owner, on Warseer) and I can't think of a reason why he'd make that up or why he'd try and use accounting tricks to show that effect. He says:
Our sales are up approx 15 to 20% on last year, all of the increase is in non GW. GW are following a selective distribution model that real hardcore luxury brands like to follow as in some ways it stokes demand and maintains high prices. However, GW despite having nice products is not and never will be a Luxury brand in the normal sense. Competitors are getting better all the time, however no one has really seized on the vacuum being left. The supply chain in this industry is still pretty woeful which massively hurts other games ability to grow significantly.
So sales are up a lot (and this is GW's main reseller so it's a 15-20% increase on a lot) but not coming from GW, and a lot of other games systems are having problems with growth because of poor distribution.
I'm not ignoring the rest of your post, just adding this whilst I digest the rest.
Now, I have mentioned that disposable income is showing that the consumer is losing ground and will likely have to cut back on spending. Zerohedge posted this article this morning that touches on a series of economic indicators that are showing that this "recovery" isn't real and we are actually in a decline already. Consumers are currently digging themselves a hole and their increases in income and spending have not outpaced inflation. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-05/what-needs-happen-we-see-big-recovery
That seems to contradict itself. Your say that customers will have to cut back on spending, but they are currently spending too much. So you're saying that in the future customer spending will drop but at the moment it's still high? In which case, how does that explain why GW's revenues are down significantly in the current/recent past if the consumer spending hasn't happened yet?
Incidentally; I agree with you about the economy; it's in poor shape and about to get worse. I just don't think that's the problem with GW as it doesn't seem to fit what we know.
Has Wayland Games released any hard data, or are we just taking them at their word?
Additionally, even if he's being 100% truthful with his percentages, they're still pretty meaningless if his revenues are measured in the six digits rather than the nine digits.
An argument can be made that the reason he's being more successful is because it's a massive discount service. Are companies that don't offer those discounts seeing the same improvements in sales?
Also, sales increases aren't the same as revenue increases. Did his 15-20% increase in sales realize a consumate increase in revenue, or did they merely offset the discount? Without hard data, his statements don't really tell us enough.
That seems to contradict itself. Your say that customers will have to cut back on spending, but they are currently spending too much. So you're saying that in the future customer spending will drop but at the moment it's still high? In which case, how does that explain why GW's revenues are down significantly in the current/recent past if the consumer spending hasn't happened yet?
It doesn't contradict itself. The economy is already showing signs that we are in decline. People are spending more than they actually make so you are seeing a drop in savings and the consumer is taking on debt to maintain a lifestyle. You are also seeing people look for cheaper alternatives. So instead of steak they are getting hamburger. At some point, they will have to cut their spending back a lot more.
The fact that specific company A or B hasn't posted that information up on their promotional fliers is completely irrelevant. The question you need to ask yourself is why any company that isn't public would be revealing sales numbers to it's customer base in the 1st place. The only reason I can think of is to gain credibility with potential customers who are on the fence. You want people to feel comfortable and not have them worried that they are wasting their money.
As for public companies, sales and revenue can be pulled forward from future quarters to make the current period look better than it actually is. Best Buy is an excellent case study of this with how they account for their gift cards. It finally caught up with them this past quarter and the stock got cut in half. There are TONS of ways to play with revenue to mask the underlying fundamentals. John Del Vecchio wrote a book on it that was the McGraw Hill best seller last year.
As for the underlying fundamentals themselves, we are seeing the numbers come out and they aren't painting a rosy picture. ISM came out today is looking like it wants to go back below 50 which would indicate a contracting economy. ISM Services are already indicating a contraction. Mind you, I thought this before even seeing these numbers. This only confirms it.
Spoiler:
And like I said before.. Everything is connected when it comes to markets. If the US, Europe or Asia go into recession we are all going to feel the pain. Some just more than others. De-leveraging will happen though.
Herzlos wrote: Maybe I don't understand this, but you're saying that the drop in GW's share price is because the markets are about to collapse in the future, and that they are shrinking because people are starting to feel the squeeze again?
If that was the case, wouldn't the same thing be impacting everyone else? For instance, Wayland Games, where games sales are up (just not GW), or the stock market in general?
I can't speak for Wayland Games' sales or how they do their accounting. It is worth noting though that historically, GW has shown to be very sensitive to changes in economic conditions and their share price dropped ahead of each of the past 2 market crashes. Each time they bottomed out before the indexes. Since they are a specialty niche market retailer, that's how i'd expect their chart to move.
I indicated earlier that leading indicators are basically saying that we are already seeing a slowdown. The stock market is already showing major divergences. I showed you guys what a RSI divergence was and how it signals that we are setup for a decline. That's not the only negative divergence from a technical perspective either. I could go into market breadth, new hi/new lows and volume analysis but that is way too deep of a discussion. If I find a good article, i'll forward it over.
Now, I have mentioned that disposable income is showing that the consumer is losing ground and will likely have to cut back on spending. Zerohedge posted this article this morning that touches on a series of economic indicators that are showing that this "recovery" isn't real and we are actually in a decline already. Consumers are currently digging themselves a hole and their increases in income and spending have not outpaced inflation. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-05/what-needs-happen-we-see-big-recovery
I'm sure you can find another indicator that says "everything is okay" just like people could from 2007 all the way to the summer of 2008. This is basically a muddy water dilemma at which point you need to get context about where you are in the cycle and make a determination about what is more consistent with historical precedence. It is my opinion that timing wise we are already beyond the average time frame for a cyclical recovery and the market is currently priced to perfection. The problem is that we are NOT in a perfect world. If anything goes wrong, you end up with air pockets and a collapse in asset prices. If you were an adult during the last cyclical decline, you should know by now that small unrelated things become big world events because of this phenomenon.
This time isn't different. I don't know what it will be next time but I do know the banks are levered, the consumer is levered and governments are levered to the hilt while rates are at historic lows. That's a recipe for disaster.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
loki old fart wrote: I think that is the general trend. People are feeling the pinch. And are reluctant to give up their hobby(why should they). And are buying models with perceived better value, GW's pricing isn't helping here. This would explain why other companies are doing better.
Meanwhile their competition is spending money like crazy and expanding into the tail end of the cycle.
I agree the economy is fethed up. Printing money does that for you.
As to the competition they are small compared to GW, and up is the only way to go.
As to the competition they are small compared to GW, and up is the only way to go.
Well.. We probably have seen "too much" competition enter the gaming space honestly. So bankruptcy for the business and going back to your day job might end up being the route a lot of these guys head.
without making the effort to substantively criticize the data underlying your opinions, which I am sure you will take to be evidence that I am an ignorant fool unwilling to question some sort of established authority, such as the government. Much as you are entitled to your opinions, I feel it would be a waste of my time to engage in any sort of substantive discussion with you, and I think you would feel the same. Nevertheless, I thought I would share my overall opinion about all of this as opposed to merely lurking.
