James Gard: Welcome to Morningstar. Our latest stock of the week is online grocery firm Ocado, which has just released a trading statement for the last three months. Investors warmed to the figures, which showed that retail revenue, average orders and customer numbers are all up on a year ago, even though the average basket valued has remained the same at 124 pounds.
In fact, Ocado’s shares have rallied strongly this week. But they’re a long way off their heady highs of £28 per share seen in February 2021. Can this recovery be trusted?
After all, it’s not long since the company – which has a joint venture with Marks and Spencer – released full-year figures showed a 500 million pounds annual loss and the path to profitability seemed a long and arduous one for investors. Shares have been unloved for a while so it’s not surprising to see some sort of opportunistic buying after such as dire run. The company still expects to make a loss in this financial year so there’s not been a dramatic change in the outlook.
Our analysts maintain their fair value estimate of fifteen pounds fifty, from a current level just over five pounds. Here the market view of Ocado and the Morningstar view are at polar opposites.
Our analysts concede that Ocado may not be as resilient as say Tesco, Sainbsurys’ or Lidl in a recession. But they argue online grocery remains a long-term opportunity and Ocado’s “Smart Platform” technology will ultimately give it edge.
For Morningstar, I’m James Gard.