BUZZ-Majestic Wine: fierce promotional competition hurts Christmas trading

** Wine warehouse chain Majestic Wine slides 14 pct to 2-mth lows as Christmas trading dampened by vast industry promotions that hit both its brick-and-mortar & online businesses

** Co cautions that competitive pricing environment will continue throughout much of 2015

** "With yet another downgrade, concern over strategy & future growth potential is likely to overhang the shares until the actions from the expected strategic update in June start to come through," Investec (LSE: INVP.L - news) says

** Broker places TP & recommendation for Majestic Wine under review

** Saying that Christmas performance has fallen short of its H2 forecast, Investec cuts forecast for FY 2015 pretax profit by 6 pct to 22 mln pounds, and FY 2016 by 8 pct to 23 mln pounds

** Majestic Wine says LfL sales growth at UK stores during the 10-wks of Christmas was up 1.1 pct

** It invested 50 basis points of gross margin to ensure that pricing remained competitive in the heightened promotional environment (RM (LSE: RM.L - news) : esha.vaish.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)