A clutch of uninspiring announcements from Thrifty 30 members is unlikely to shift my opinion on the companies – either way.

Profitable un-indebted Thrifty 30 member Haynes Publishing publishes another set of results with headlines much the same as the previous set.
Still creeping towards the Haynes Manual Online. May be getting to grips with its pension scheme. It's top two sellers were the: USS Enterprise Manual and Wallace & Gromit Cracking Contraptions Manual. The company's come a long way since John Haynes cranked out copies of his first book Building a '750cc' Special on the school Gestetner.

Downbeat results statement from box shifter and Thrifty 30 member Northamber reveals its first loss in eighteen years.
That said, it's only just been profitable in many recent years and frequently uses its cash reserves to pay the dividend. Now the rate at which it is eating itself is accelerating. The chairman will not offer any optimism 'for the near to medium-term future' as the company tries to reinvent its business model. The rather intractable question I have to answer when I review the company is do computer wholesalers have a future? And when did I start investing in reinvention?

To compound the misery, the FT's Lex thinks the PC market is in the final stages of commoditisation.
Which explains why manufacturer HP is getting out of the market.

Interims at metal basher, and T30 member, Metalrax reveal bits of it have turned around enough for the company as whole to make a small profit.
Its export oriented engineering businesses are doing very well. Selling pots and pans in the UK high street, though, is more tricksome. Meanwhile Metalrax's debt burden is tumbling, and so is its pension deficit, but mostly because of financial engineering. Metalrax is selling off properties and leasing them back, and pension obligations have fallen because of accounting changes.