Next’s shares are at about half their value of two years ago. “During June and July we saw a marked improvement in retail [shop] and Directory sales. By comparison its home shopping arm, Directory, which accounts for 40% of sales, had a bumper second quarter, with sales up 11.4%, up from a 3.3% rise in the first quarter. As a result, full-price sales finished up 0.7% on last year, while analysts had predicted a slump of more than 3%. Before the update, Next shares had lost 20% of their value over the past year as Wolfson delivered progressively gloomier assessments of its sales prospects.

Source: The Guardian August 03, 2017 17:50 UTC