In quarterly reports, companies usually try to present even bad market situations in a halfway positive way and emphasize that challenges can be mastered quite well.

However, when it says that the Management Board is viewing the current market environment "with concern", that is a certain deviation from the usual phrases.

This was the case recently at Fielmann.

The optician chain announced that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic had led to ongoing restrictions, record levels of sick leave among employees and low customer frequency in most of its markets over the course of the first half of the year.

The well-known factors of inflation, the Ukraine war, the prospect of a recession and other uncertainties such as Covid-19 mean that money is apparently no longer easy for many consumers.

It can sometimes happen that savings are made on eye health or at least on new fashionable glasses frames.

Profit warning shocks shareholders

These developments meant that Fielmann downright shocked its shareholders with a profit warning and caused the price of the optician share listed in the German small-cap index S-Dax to fall - and this after the price development had not been particularly brilliant in recent years.

One reason for the recent weaker earnings performance was higher employee spending.

In the fight against the shortage of skilled workers in ophthalmic optics and hearing aid acoustics, salaries were increased and adjusted in several markets.

As a result, personnel expenses rose by around EUR 22 million in the first half of the year.

Although group sales between January and June increased by almost 8 percent year-on-year to around EUR 851 million, earnings before taxes (EBT) shrank from EUR 96 million in the previous year to EUR 89 million now.

This corresponds to an EBT margin of 10.4 percent.

In terms of growth, Fielmann thus remains on course in relation to the medium-term Vision 2025 strategy, but when it comes to profitability, it is now becoming more difficult to achieve the goals.

By 2025, the group had set itself an EBT margin of at least 16 percent with average annual sales growth of 5 percent.

At the annual general meeting on July 14, the management wants to report on strategic initiatives to increase profitability in the short and medium term.

The forecast now issued for the 2022 financial year implies an EBT margin of around 10.6 percent.

Sales are expected to increase slightly from almost EUR 1.7 billion in the previous year to around EUR 1.8 billion, while EBT is expected to fall from EUR 209.7 million in 2021 to EUR 190 million.

So far, Fielmann has promised sales growth of around 10 percent and a "noticeable" improvement in the profit margin in the best-case scenario.

A glimmer of hope in online retail

However, it is not just the current problems that Fielmann has to overcome.

Online trading has been a problem for the optician chain for many years.

For a long time it was assumed that something like glasses could only be sold locally by trained staff.

In the meantime, however, Fielmann is trying to establish online trading itself.

That's why advances in e-commerce have been one of the company's glimmers of hope.

In the first half of the year, the number of parcels sent across Europe increased by 31 percent to more than 640,000.

In the future there will be even more.

Many long-standing shareholders in the optician chain are likely to hope that Fielmann's future will look brighter again.

While the Fielmann share was able to impress for many years with relatively high price stability and above-average price returns, this has not been the case for almost five years.

After the most recent record high of EUR 77.70 was marked in October 2017, the share turned into a very volatile sideways movement, which only offered profit opportunities for speculatively oriented investors.

Share price still heavily burdened

In the meantime, the technical chart situation has clouded over significantly.

After an interim high in January 2021 at EUR 72.45, the Fielmann share went into a descent that has continued to this day.

The price collapsed, most recently again heavily burdened by a profit warning from the group, to around 37 euros at its lowest point.

That meant the lowest share price since 2013.

In terms of the chart, the trend arrows are clearly pointing downwards, so that another correction down to the 30 mark could even follow in the short term.

If, on the other hand, the Fielmann share bottoms out and then starts a recovery rally, the 200-day moving average of EUR 54 could come back into focus in the medium term.

A breakout to the upside would then mean a new buy-signal.

The analysts who monitor Fielmann issued both hold and buy recommendations after the most recent corporate profit warning.

DZ Bank, for example, has lowered its price target from EUR 58 to EUR 41 due to the reduced Fielmann annual targets, but is sticking to the “Hold” recommendation.

Warburg Research, on the other hand, is much more optimistic.

The analysis company continues to issue a buy recommendation.

Although the price target was lowered from 72 to 50 euros, it is still 25 percent above the current Fielmann price.

Some dividend collectors may also use the currently low share prices to get started.

Because the Fielmann share currently has a comparatively high dividend yield of 3.8 percent.