Computacenter results and further on RTN.

Final results from Computacenter (CCC) today the £1bn information technology and infrastructure services company. These look fine on the face of it with the earnings slightly ahead of forecasts, although they are somewhat confused by disposals and subsequent share consolidations last year. Probably as a result of this effect the dividend looked to be a little light of forecasts. I'm not unduly worried by that as the cash generation here remains good and they are back up to record levels of cash on the balance sheet despite returning significant sums to shareholders during the year.

Having said that though they did seem to be suggesting that the phasing of business this year will lead to a second half bias to their figures as will their intention to invest in the business from income in the first half too. With the shares looking a bit up with events on around 15x with a 2.8% yield for this year, it is not that surprising therefore to see them off a bit this morning. I would however back this one for the longer term as part of a diversified income portfolio as the management have been conservative, reliable and very shareholder friendly being big holders themselves.

In the short term therefore probably no rush to add to them or get involved, but I note from the chart below that they seem to have good support in the 700 to 780p range which they are falling towards the top end of this morning. So if it is one that appeals to you then it might be worth tracking it and perhaps putting in a price alert lower in the support range in case it has a further sell off with the market  perhaps or when they report the weaker first half later in the year as the market may well have forgotten what they said today by then.

Finally, coming back to Restaurant Group (RTN) which I covered earlier in the week. I note the estimates for the current year have apparently already fallen slightly lower than my not so conservative guess of 35p as it turns outs. See the screen shots from Stockopedia below. I just note that previous slow downs in 2011 and 2014 were no treated as harshly by the market. So given the on going fall in the share price, which by default has led to de-rating to around 11x with a 4.5% yield which does seem quite tasty. However, given their comments about struggling to grow lfl's this year and more competition, perhaps the market is more worried about the sustainability of the growth going forward this time or may be it has over reacted - as ever time will tell I guess.