Some folks think that I am the lackey of bear raider Evil Knievil, writing to order to suit his needs. Au contraire. He does not work for me and vice versa and given how insufferable the old boy can be when he gets it right, I – like many – take a perverse pleasure when one of his short positions sees his financial toes roasted close to the fire. And online retail giant ASOS (LSE:ASC) has roasted Evil badly over the years. He has been short for much of its meteoric rise and he is still short with the shares at 3,334p – he will carry on getting burned.
I write this totally objective comment on ASOS even though it uses as its PR form College Group which I appear to be having a bit of a battle with as of this afternoon. To read about Kay Larsen PR prude at College Group PR, Pornography, Cheryl Cole, sheep shagging and Advanced Computer Software click HERE
Moving on from the prude to the bear. Cawkwell (that is to say Evil Knievil) has always been of the view that ASOS shares trade on too high a PE because at some stage the earnings growth rate will slip. So far it has not happened and I guess it will have cost him several hundreds of thousands of pounds. It will cost him more.