Thirty years ago the harsh winter of 1963 effectively shut down the country’s betting shops because there was no racing. Now bookies take bets on four televised football matches a week, the Irish lottery and a new rival to the Nation Lottery called 49s. It is a much better balanced business and even within the 72 per cent of turnover represented by racing, all-weather tracks have made meetings more reliable.Even diversification, however, cannot be expected to protect against a 25,000 to one long-shot like Frankie Dettori’s clean sweep at Ascot last year. Stanley’s pounds 2m hit on that day in effect wiped out profits at its new Gus Carter acquisition and pegged the pre-tax profits rise for the six months to October to 21 per cent.Profits before tax moved ahead from pounds 6.2m to pounds 7.4m, pushing earnings per share from 3.76p to 4.51p. That meant Stanley was able to recommend a 20 per cent rise in the interim dividend. These were impressive figures but analysts still managed to find one or two niggling worries.Analysts’ biggest concern lay in evidence of margin pressure in both the bookies and casinos, where punters are said to be getting better at beating the house, by fair means and foul.

Better training is expected to give staff a sharper eye and improve Stanley’s return. There were also worries about a pretty anaemic 3 per cent rise in sales from the betting shop arm. The success of betting on the Irish lottery might have been expected to boost turnover by more than inflation.Still, most brokers were talking about raising their forecasts yesterday and a full-year outcome of about pounds 23m now looks likely. That would put the shares, up 17.5p to 294p yesterday, on a prospective price-earnings ratio of 22. It is right the shares should trade at a premium to the market, to reflect the benefits of deregulation to come, but with so many question marks over the company as well that rating is high enough.. Yesterday’s 15.5p fall in Kingfisher’s share price looks slightly harsh on the retailer, which turned in one of the season’s better Christmas trading updates. Stripping out new store openings, like-for-like sales rose by 7.8 per cent, which was better than Boots and only marginally behind Dixons.
The group figure included double- digit gains from both Woolworths and Comet.

This was impressive as both were up against strong comparisons the previous year. The performance from Woolworths was even better given that the toy market appears to have lost sales to rival products such as sports clothing this year.And if the recent figures from Adams were anything to go by, then the childrenswear market has not been easy either.B&Q did well, buoyed by the gradual recovery in the housing market. And Superdrug delivered a 5 per cent increase in like-for-like sales.Ironically it is now Darty, the French electrical chain, which is dragging the group performance back. Its like-for-like sales rose by just 2.4 per cent.Only a couple of years ago it was Darty which was Kingfisher’s saviour when internal problems damaged the performance of Comet and Woolworths, resulting in the group’s calamitous 1994 profits warning.Though Kingfisher’s shares have risen by more than 60 per cent since then, yesterday’s bout of profit taking makes the shares look attractive once more at 654.5p.On upgraded analyst profit forecasts of pounds 380m this year and pounds 445m next time, they trade on a forward rating of 16 falling to 14.

This is a discount to the sector that is due more to the disappointments of 1994 than fundamentals. It is worth pointing out that just a year ago analysts were forecasting Kingfisher 1996/97 profits of just pounds 310m.Woolworths’ problems back then were due to errors that have been sorted out rather than any underlying difficulty.Comet should benefit from the PC boom and B&Q should be selling paint and pliers like no tomorrow if the housing market forecasts prove true.If Darty returns to form as well, then Sir Geoff Mulcahy will have pulled off a remarkable recovery. The company has disappointed before, but the shares look good value.. Out of every cloud comes a silver lining and the one from Coloroll, the collapsed 1980s stock market star, is Denby, the pottery group.

Bought out by management in 1990 and floated at 130p in June 1994, the group’s shares have more than doubled, rising another 7p to 277.5p yesterday. The reason for the latest strength was an upbeat annual general meeting statement announcing that sales romped ahead by 15 per cent in the first three months of the year to December. The buoyant current trading picture builds on an impressive record which has seen profits jump from pounds 2.76m to pounds 4.76m in the past three years.
Denby, founded in 1809, has been revitalised by a renewed concentration on design, aiming in particular at the “aspirational” market of young newly-weds and the like. Cleverly pitched just below Wedgwood and Royal Doulton’s rather more formal products, Denby has probably rightly assumed that the days of bringing out the best china for special occasions are waning.But while it continues to add to what it claims is a leading position in the UK, the one-off gains from its refocusing there seem to be largely over. The domestic market has been flat for several years and most of the growth is coming from overseas markets, where Denby seems to be replicating its success.Although it has been across the Atlantic for most of this decade, sales in the US continue to rise at rates above 30 per cent. It seems that Americans have taken to this type of crockery in a big way and, since September, to Denby’s matching glassware range which it reintroduced after a 10- year gap.The rip-roaring pound could represent a problem if it is sustained.