Festive fright for retailers

A shock profit warning from online fashion dynamo Asos has left analysts fearful about prospects for Christmas shopping, reports Alex Rankine.

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The travails of Britain's high street are well-known, but "the conventional wisdom" was that internet retailers were well placed to ride out the shopping squeeze, says Andrea Felsted for Bloomberg. Yet this week, it fell to online fast-fashion retailer Asos to serve up the City's "first seasonal shocker". Shares in the business crashed 38% on Monday following a profit warning, wiping more than £800m off its market value.

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Markets editor

Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019. 

Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere. 

He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful. 

Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.