M&S recovery has momentum: will it stick?

After years of decline, M&S seems to have turned a corner. But is this just a “dead cat bounce”?

M&S Store in Westfield Shopping Centre, Stratford, London
(Image credit: Getty Images)

For years, the retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) was a byword for poor performance. Unfashionable clothes and lack of investment in stores, along with the general decline of the high street in the face of online shopping, are just some of the reasons put forward to explain the fact that its share price peaked back in 2007. A succession of leaders have tried to reboot the company, but until recently their efforts failed to stop its decline, as shown by the fact that its share price fell by roughly 80% between May 2015 and October 2022. 

However, over the past two years, the shares have staged a comeback, more than tripling from a low of below 94p to 339p now. So has the business finally turned the corner, or is this just a “dead cat bounce”?

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri