Weekly Wrap: Pasties, National Holidays, Diamonds

VIDEO: The U-turn in the Government's 'Pasty Tax', why you should be wary of trading on national holidays, and diamonds' ten-fold price increase

Alanna Petroff 1 June, 2012 | 9:26AM
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Transcript
Alanna Petroff: Welcome to the weekly wrap. Three stories caught my attention this week and that includes Greggs, also low trading volume that we saw specifically on Monday and, of course, diamonds ahead of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

Now, let's start with Greggs, because shares rallied strongly this week after the government did a U-turn on its proposed VAT taxes for hot foods. Specifically, in the March budget, George Osborne said he would be extending VAT to hot foods such as pasties; but now the government has changed its mind. George Osborne has decided that as long as hot takeaway food is cooling naturally, it's not going to be subject to the 20% VAT as previously planned. So this great news for Greggs.

You can see in the stock graph here, over the one year, shares fell in March when the news was announced that pasties would be taxed and of course then the markets did poorly and Greggs went down with the markets…and then boom! Right this week shares have risen again after the government did its U-turn on that proposed tax, which is very good news for the company, because a big share of its sales comes from pasties in particular, and customers won't be thrilled about spending that extra 20% on all of their food at Greggs.

Now, I spoke with Clive Black from Shore Capital and he says that this is great news. He thinks that valuations are good right now. This is a good entry point and he also says you can see that Greggs is expanding, it's opening new stores, growing its sales and also the company pays a dividend, which is not bad for investors looking for some income. So, it's an interesting story right now I think.

Now, let's move on to our second topic which is trading volumes. We saw on Monday that there was very, very low trading volumes and that was because the U.S. was on holiday. They had their Memorial Day long weekend and they were off on Monday. So, in the UK, we did see an impact. We saw only 510 million shares traded, and now that might sound like a lot but normally you see over 1 billion shares traded. So we were seeing very low volume. Now, Joshua Raymond is from City Index, he is the Market Strategist there, and he says that, “trading volumes in Europe have been something light and so as such, this has contributed to the choppy trading session that we have witnessed, with clients only confident enough to take short term trading positions.”

Now, that's an important point to keep in mind that when the markets are closed in different parts around the world, the other markets that are open can see much lower trading volumes and you can see choppy trading; there is not a lot of conviction in which way the markets will go. So, it's something to keep in mind when you are looking to buy or sell and there is a national holiday going on and some markets around the world are closed.

Now, let's move on to diamonds, because as you know the Queen's Diamond Jubilee is upon us. So, here is a fun diamond fact for you. If you had bought a good quality one-carat diamond back in the early 1950s, it would have cost you about £250, which sounds like a deal, because now that same one-carat diamond will cost you roughly £2,850. So, the prices increased roughly ten-fold over the last few years. So, if you are looking to invest right now and you're not sure where to go, diamonds could maybe be an option. If you don't want to invest in stocks, you don't want to invest in bonds, there is always the commodity of diamonds, and if you're not really sure about diamonds, then there are a lot of diamond companies out there, that's an indirect way to get into the diamond market. So for example, Harry Winston Diamond Corporation is one of the most well-known companies and there are lots of other diamond companies out there. But of course, before you invest in diamonds or diamond companies, you'd want to do your due diligence first.

Okay. That's the weekly wrap. Thank you very much for joining me.

The information contained within is for educational and informational purposes ONLY. It is not intended nor should it be considered an invitation or inducement to buy or sell a security or securities noted within nor should it be viewed as a communication intended to persuade or incite you to buy or sell security or securities noted within. Any commentary provided is the opinion of the author and should not be considered a personalised recommendation. The information contained within should not be a person's sole basis for making an investment decision. Please contact your financial professional before making an investment decision.

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Alanna Petroff

Alanna Petroff  is a financial journalist with Morningstar UK.

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