Footsie continues to slide
London’s top ranking shares were led by supermarket group Morrisons today after chairman Sir Ken Morrison delivered a major boost to the chain’s recovery hopes.
Sir Ken said like-for-likes sales were up 6.1% in recent weeks as the retailer began to put recent problems integrating Safeway behind it.
But the gain – up 9.75p to 215.5p – was not reflected by the rest of the London market, which lost ground after rising 51.3 points yesterday. The FTSE 100 Index was 39.4 points lower at 5892.7 by mid morning, even though the Dow Jones Industrial Average bounced back on positive corporate results.
The performance in London reflected nerves ahead of interest rate announcements from the Bank of England and European Central Bank.
Shares in Unilever suffered the biggest hit as investors appeared concerned at a warning of tough sales conditions in the UK and Europe. Despite the firm reporting a 16% rise in profits, the shares fell 53p to 1236p.
Chemicals business ICI also took a tumble with shares lowering 15.25p – or 4% - to 362p, despite the company announcing a 12% rise in first half profits. Concern over margins is likely to have driven the share price fall.
Meanwhile, ITV made further gains amid reports of fresh takeover talk and suggestions the channel’s chief executive Charles Allen could be poised to step down at the beleaguered broadcaster. The stock lifted 2.25p to 103.75p.
Barclays rose 1p to 628.5p after announcing pre-tax profits had increased by a stronger than expected 37% to £3.67 billion.
Party Poker owns PartyGaming also found itself amongst the front runners after it announced the purchase of online betting group Gamebookers for 102 million euros (£69.6m).
The firm has struggled amid regulatory concerns over online betting in the US, but saw shares build 2p to 111.5p following news of the acquisition.
