ASDA - comment
Nobody is surprised by the poor performance of ASDA in the 12 weeks to August 10th. Meanwhile, our thesis on the company is unchanged; as the cost-of-living crisis recedes, ASDA (and Morrisons) will benefit from consumers seeking out the larger stores for their weekly shopping. ASDA is addressing its largely self-inflicted sales challenges. Management partially blamed weak Q2 sales figures on stocking issues around new logistics systems. Also, ASDA is putting more staff (and fewer self-service checkouts in stores to improve customer experience, an acknowledgement that the cost-cutting measures went too far.