By Patrick Avenell
Amid a disappointing day on the Australian stock market, Clive Peeters has emerged as the best performing retail group today – and it did so by not moving at all.
The last few weeks have been very tumultuous for Clive Peeters, with the listed retailer falling into single digits earlier this month. A particularly bad day last Monday – dubbed Black Monday – was the nadir.
Since then, however, managing director Greg Smith has conducted his first media interview, and the market has responded – by holding firm at nine cents for almost a week. A rise in share price could well be on the horizon now.
The big loser today was JB Hi-Fi. Due to the great success experienced by JB since its listing, and the contrasting fortunes of Clive Peeters, this group’s share performance has not been reported widely recently.
It’s becoming an alarming situation, however, with the group dropping $2.61 over the last six trading days. On a day-by-day basis, this has been represented in percentage drops of 1.2, 6.88, 3.37, 7.2, a day of no change, and then a massive 10.42 per cent today. In total, JB Hi-Fi has dropped 26.1 per cent since close of trading on 7 November.
The other major listed retailer is Harvey Norman. On the eve of Gerry Harvey’s final planned reporting of weekly sales, Harvey Norman dropped 11 cents to $2.29. It was trading at $2.89 last Monday, meaning that Harvey Norman has lost almost 21 per cent just the last five days of trading.