Honestly, if you’d told anyone five years ago that Marks and Spencer (MKS) would be the darling of the FTSE 100 in 2026, they’d have probably laughed you out of the room. It was the "grandad brand." A relic. But look at the Marks and Spencer Group PLC share price today, and you’ll see a very different story.
We’re sitting in January 2026, and MKS is trading around the 366p mark. That’s a massive leap from the dark days of the pandemic, but the journey over the last twelve months hasn't been a straight line up. It's been more like a rollercoaster that lost its brakes for a second, then found a rocket booster.
The 2025 "Glitch" Nobody Saw Coming
You can't talk about the current share price without mentioning the April 2025 cyberattack. It was a mess. Basically, a major security breach crippled their online operations for weeks. In today’s world, if you can’t sell a pair of trousers on a Tuesday afternoon via an app, you’re in trouble.
Online sales for the Fashion, Home & Beauty division didn’t just dip; they plummeted by nearly 43% during the outage. Analysts, naturally, freaked out. The stock, which had been gaining some serious momentum, hit a wall. Earnings expectations for the 2026 fiscal year were slashed from about 31p per share down to around 23p.
But here’s the thing: M&S didn't just sit there. They used the crisis to completely overhaul their tech stack. By the time the 2025 Christmas trading results dropped a few days ago, the market realized the "M&S recovery" wasn't dead—it was just reloading.
Why the Numbers are Actually Looking Decent
Despite the drama, the fundamentals are kinda shocking for a business that was supposedly "dying" a decade ago.
- Food is the Engine: M&S Food is currently the fastest-growing grocer for families in the UK. They’ve hit a record market share of 4.0%.
- The Ocado Factor: Their joint venture with Ocado Retail is finally finding its feet, with sales up over 13% recently.
- The Dividend is Back: They’ve bumped the interim dividend to 1.20p, which isn't huge, but it's a signal. It says, "We have cash, and we aren't afraid to use it."
If you look at the valuation, M&S is trading at roughly 10 to 11 times forward earnings. Compare that to some of its grocery peers, and it looks cheap. Why? Because about 30% of its business is clothing and home, which usually commands a higher premium than selling pints of milk. The market is still pricing MKS like a pure grocer with a "risky" clothing side-hustle, rather than a diversified retail powerhouse.
What Most People Get Wrong
The biggest misconception about the Marks and Spencer Group PLC share price is that it’s tied to the "death of the high street."
Actually, it's the opposite.
M&S is doing this clever "store rotation" thing. They are closing the crumbling, drafty old shops in town centers and opening massive, shiny "renewal" stores in retail parks. These new stores are smashing their targets by about 20%.
I spoke with some folks who follow the stock closely, and the consensus is basically that the market is lagging behind the operational reality. We’re seeing a business that has cut £340 million in costs and is aiming for £600 million in structural savings by 2028. That is a lot of fat being trimmed.
The "Expert" View vs. Reality
Right now, the analyst community is surprisingly bullish. Out of 16 brokers covering the stock, 12 have "Buy" or "Strong Buy" ratings. There isn't a single "Sell" on the board. The median price target is sitting around 435p, which implies there’s still a lot of room to run—maybe 20-25% upside from where we are today.
However, we have to be real. The UK economy in 2026 is... fragile. If consumer confidence stays shaky or if there's another "cost of living" flare-up, people might swap their M&S Gastropub meals for supermarket own-brand beans. That’s the risk. M&S is a premium brand, and premium brands get hit first when people feel the pinch.
Should You Care?
If you’re looking at MKS as a short-term gamble, you might get burned by the volatility. But as a turnaround story? It’s one of the best in the FTSE. They’ve gone from a net debt nightmare to a company with a very manageable balance sheet.
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What you should do next:
- Watch the March results: This will be the "all clear" signal to see if the cyberattack costs are fully flushed out of the system.
- Monitor the Fashion margins: Food is great, but the share price won't hit that 435p target unless the Fashion & Home division gets its operating margin back above 10%.
- Check the 200-day moving average: The stock recently dipped below it (352p). If it stays above that level for a few weeks, it’s a strong technical sign that the recovery is back on track.
The bottom line is that M&S isn't your grandmother’s department store anymore. It’s a lean, tech-focused retailer that just happens to sell the best Percy Pigs in the world. Whether that's enough to keep the share price climbing in a weird economy remains to be seen, but the momentum is clearly there.