London’s FTSE 100 rose 30.4 points to 7,320.4 on Thursday thanks to strength in utilities, oil producers, miners and insurers. The most heavily-traded stock by volume was British Airways owner International Consolidated Airlines (IAG), which saw its shares fall 3.9% to 461.5p after downgrading earnings guidance.
Imperial Brands (IMB) wafted 9.8% lower to £18.63 on a full year profit warning, the tobacco company massaging annual sales growth guidance down to ‘around 2%’ for broadly flat earnings per share. In a pre-close trading update, Imperial Brands blamed vaping hysteria in the USA for lower than expected growth in Next Generation Products (NGPs) as well as an aggressive push for market share gains in the competitive Australian market for the earnings alert.
Also feeling the pain was Pearson (PSON), which slumped 15% lower to 730.6p on a profit warning related to a weaker than expected performance from its higher education courseware arm.
Elsewhere, roadside assistance specialist AA (AA.) accelerated 3.3% to 66.9p after launching a ‘cutting-edge partnership’ with Uber for roadside and Service Maintenance and Repair (SMR), positive news building on in-line first half results.
Comparison site operator GoCo (GOCO) gained 3.3p (4.4%) to trade at 79p on news its AutoSave business has in excess of 220,000 live customers, up 28% since 8 July and surpassing the previous guidance to grow customers by at least 25% by the end of 2019.
SSP (SSPG) softened 5.8% to 629p after the travel sector food and beverage outlets operator disappointed with fourth quarter like-for-like sales growth of 1.8%, below the 2% called for by consensus. SSP blamed slower passenger growth in Europe, the grounding of the Boeing Max 737 aircraft in North America as well as the protests in Hong Kong for the subdued quarterly growth, although reassuringly, it left full year guidance unchanged.
DFS Furniture (DFS) cheapened 2.5p to 224p despite full year results showing 31% growth in pre-tax profit to £50.2m on sales up 14% to £996m. Investors focused on the mixed outlook statement, where the upholstered furniture retailer reported subdued orders over the first 12 weeks of the new financial year amid an increasingly uncertain political and economic backdrop.
Property portal operator OnTheMarket (OTMP:AIM) crashed 13.4% lower to 84p after cutting its revenue growth target for this year and next year on lower than expected transaction volumes and reduced lettings.
Blaming fears of a no-deal Brexit and a ‘wait-and-see’ approach by both buyers and sellers, OnTheMarket now forecasts revenues of £18m to £18.5m for the year to 31 January 2020 and £27m to £29m for the year to January 2021.
Solar panels play Verditek (VDTK:AIM) ticked 14.1% higher to 4.05p on news it is raising £650,000 via a placing priced at 4.5p and has bagged ‘a further material order with a Nigerian distributor’.
Telematics and data insight provider Trakm8 (TRAK:AIM) ticked 0.5p higher to 20p on an improved outlook for the full year, with management guiding towards a modestly higher first half sales with a ‘considerably lower’ half year loss.
