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20 Week trading update looks good

Woolworths have released a trading update for 20 weeks to 16 November, which includes David Jones in the numbers for the first time (effective 1 August), here is a little snippet: "Group sales increased by 47.5% for the first 20 weeks of the 2015 financial year over the comparable 20-week period in 2014. Excluding the impact of David Jones, Group sales grew by 11.9%." You must remember now that there are three operating subsidiaries, there is the South African Woolworths, then there is Country Road and now there is David Jones. They will report separately on these three, all the sales of merchandise under the Country Road in South Africa will be reported on as Woolworths. It seems from a pretty quick review of the trading update (that coincides with the annual report and ahead of the AGM next week) that all is good. A couple of people I speak to now say that they are working hard on the food side and are starting to make huge progress in the local market, winning market share. Good news. What is not good news is that the share price has fallen, the big issue I think is food price inflation, the lower energy prices will help consumers in the coming months.


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