Jarvis plc

John464

Share price doubled in 6 months
Whats going on?

bowlhead99

John464 said:

Share price doubled in 6 months
Whats going on?

You mean Jarvis Securities plc (ticker:JIM) (https://investegate.co.uk/jarvis-securities/rns/half-year-report/202007160700031318T/ ), rather than Jarvis plc which went into administration a decade ago, right? 

They're up 70% YTD, but if you are seeing them 'doubled', some of that will be the fact that they were in a slump with everyone else about 6-7 months ago. I last added some in June not far below £6, price up about 35-40% since then.

The price is deservedly higher than last year, as in mid July they announced strong results for the first half of the year (link above) showing 30% extra revenues at higher margins translating into 50% extra PBT compared to the first half of the previous year. Stockbrokers can sometimes do quite well when markets are unstable and people are trying to reposition themselves, and they are a business with operational gearing i.e. revenue from a significant increase in trade volumes will outstrip the increase in marginal operating costs.

The price you're comparing it to from April was when it was only just recovering from the broad sell-off which had hit many companies indiscriminately; they were down a quarter at one point, when with hindsight their business did not really need to be hit at all as their profits were going up. So by the time the July results had been out a week and people digested them, the share price was already 45% higher than where it was in the last week of April (your start point for the 6-month-ago comparator).

As a smallcap, share prices can be volatile and it can sometimes take people a while to take notice. More recently they announced that they will do a stock split (so that an £8 share would be split into 4x £2 shares) in the hope of improving liquidity and interest in the shares; that seems to have gone down OK, with the price up 10% in the last couple of weeks while the FTSE250 has been flattish.

Thrugelmir

All stockbrokers (HL, A J Bell) are enjoying an increase in clients, increase in trading activity, IPO's etc. Jarvis also provides backroom support. Such as providing an inhouse ISA facility for Goldman Sachs employees. 

Held these shares for a number of years. Was good to top up at £3.85p earlier in the year. Reliable dividend payers as well. 

One day if the family sells their shareholding will make an attractive take over target.