Sector movers: Retail stocks hold firm as FTSE 100 slides below 7,000
Consumer and retail stocks largely held firm as the FTSE 100 fell below the 7,000 mark on Wednesday.
Food & Drug Retailers
3,705.02
17:10 19/04/24
FTSE 100
7,895.85
16:59 19/04/24
FTSE 250
19,391.30
17:09 19/04/24
FTSE 350
4,341.08
17:09 19/04/24
FTSE All-Share
4,296.41
17:08 19/04/24
General Retailers
3,864.64
17:09 19/04/24
Greggs
2,762.00p
16:40 19/04/24
Home Reit
38.05p
17:30 11/04/24
Industrial Engineering
13,663.38
17:10 19/04/24
Mobile Telecommunications
1,784.13
16:59 24/01/22
Next
8,774.00p
16:40 19/04/24
Ocado Group
347.20p
16:35 19/04/24
Poundland Group
225.00p
16:29 16/09/16
Vodafone Group
67.00p
16:40 19/04/24
Weir Group
1,980.00p
17:15 19/04/24
At 13:40 London time, the blue chip index was trading down 0.50% or 35.06 points at 6,995.47 with retail stocks performing well on the back of a positive results from Greggs and Home Retail.
First quarter sales at Greggs (up 4.46%) beat expectations thanks to a new range of healthier products.
In an update, the bakery chain said its improved range of freshly-made sandwiches and the strong sales of its breakfast meal deals helped total sales to grow 5% and like-for-like sales rise 5.9% over the quarter.
Additionally, Home Retail (down 2.87%) posted marginally higher profits than forecast as both of its brands, Argos and Homebase, delivered like-for-like sales and profit growth for the second successive year.
The FTSE 250 retailer, which made no comment on current trading, lifted its full-year dividend 15% to 3.8p as earnings per share rose 25% to 13.0p on pre-tax profits up 14% to £132.1m.
The positivity transferred over to other stocks in the segment, with Ocado (up 3.35%), Next (up 2.79%) and Poundland (up 1.71%) all in the green.
Telecoms and engineering
Consumer facing and retail stocks aside, story of the day came from the mobile telephony stocks as market leader Vodafone led the segment higher following a ‘buy’ recommendation from Berenberg.
The broker, which upgraded Vodafone from 'hold', hiked its target price for the company’s shares from 214p to 270p, saying the valuation was "attractive" after the stock's underperformance over the last year.
"We think operating trends will continue to improve, group return on assets and free cash flow (FCF) will recover strongly in FY17 from lows in FY16, which will support the attractive 5% dividend yield and dividend growth," it added.
Elsewhere, engineering stocks were performing well on Wednesday, after Weir Group said it was "taking further action to support profitability" via cost cuts in its oil and gas division following a challenging first quarter.
Order inputs across the whole company were down 9% on the same period last year and 10% lower than the fourth quarter of 2014 on the back of a big drop in North American oil and gas activity levels.
On a like-for-like basis, group order input was down 12%. Original equipment orders were 22% lower than last year while aftermarket orders fell 2%. The news sent the group shares up by 3.57% as the market gave its overtures aimed at streamlining a thumbs up.
Top five sector movers
Mobile Telecommunications 5,321.29 +76.58 +1.46%
Food & Drug Retailers 3,148.40 +25.07 +0.80%
Industrial Engineering 9,109.29 +64.08 +0.71%
General Retailers 3,166.26 +19.72 +0.63%
Aerospace & Defence 5,283.69 +24.57 +0.47%