Jim Armitage: This is no time to lose faith in JD, despite upgrade delay

Recent years have made this the traditional time for a JD Sports profits upgrade.

Peter Cowgill’s retail empire’s forecast-beating AGM day profits upgrades were becoming as regular as Christmas, adding to the religious fervour his followers have for JD shares.

It had to end, and today was that day. Not that there won’t definitely be an upgrade further down the line, merely that it couldn’t be today because of the early timing of another spiritual festival, Eid.

JD brought forward its sale to get more new, full-price ranges on the shelves for the Muslim gift-giving season. That shift in the calendar makes it hard to gauge the longer-term profit picture quite yet.

You’d have thought capitalising on the shopping habits of your customers deserves praise, not punishment. Yet the shares fell 10%.

That’s daft. JD is churning out like-for-like sales growth of 3%-5%, and its fast-growing overseas operations are in fine fettle.

Sceptics will point out that Nike’s recent rapprochement with Amazon, in which it will finally allow its gear to be sold through the site, will hurt the traditional sports retailers.

But, as broker Peel Hunt points out, that’s more of a problem for discounters like Sports Direct, not JD, whose exclusive product ranges with Nike won’t appear on Amazon. I’m with the JD zealots. Buy the shares on today’s dumb dip.

UK greed boosts US

Funny how billions of pounds of British investors’ money is flowing to giant US fund managers such as Vanguard. Until you notice how much its UK peers are charging.

After yesterday’s FCA report into the investment industry, a reader points out that the funds platform Hargreaves Lansdown (profit margin: 70%-plus) charges a typical 0.45% to oversee your money. Yet Vanguard, the US behemoth, recently cut its fees to as little as 0.23%.

Admittedly, that’s only for Vanguard’s own products, whereas Hargreaves Lansdown retails funds from a range of companies. And, true, Hargreaves does seem popular on customer service. But when it’s twice the price of Vanguard direct, you do wonder if it’s worth it.

The FCA probe into platforms’ value for money couldn’t come soon enough.

Pipe down, guv’nor

Mark Carney must feel like he’s living the Life of Brian. Every word he utters is seized upon by hordes of over-excitable fanatics and interpreted to the nth degree.

Markets whipsaw and he is accused of giving confusing guidance, whatever he says.

A simple solution, Mr Governor: say less.