The 14 per cent bounce in Halfords' (HFD) share price after a fairly pedestrian set of results might have been more surprising if the shares hadn't fallen by the same amount on the back of a similarly anodyne trading statement last month. Investors are clearly jittery, given the company's recent history of profit warnings. A small uplift in revenue in its autocentres business made up for a similarly marginal decline in retail sales, with the net effect being flat like-for-like sales. Underlying pre-tax profit was also flat, but £3.2mn of one-off costs covering branch closures, a new warehouse management system and cloud migration costs meant reported pre-tax profit fell by 23 per cent. Free cash flow was strong at £28.1mn, though, allowing the company to finish the period with a small net cash balance (excluding leases).