Tesco profits fail to excite FTSE
Record profits from Tesco failed to excite the market today as the FTSE 100 Index stayed close to its opening mark.
The supermarket giant led the way on the Footsie fallers board as investors fretted over the impact of higher energy costs on the business.
The negative reaction to Tesco was in contrast to oil explorer Cairn Energy whose upbeat results sent its shares to an all-time high, enabling the Footsie to extend its recent rally by another 7.2 points to 5436.9 by mid-morning.
Investors took a disappointing performance across the Atlantic in their stride after the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 80 points last night.
Tesco shares lost nearly 3%, off 9.25p to 317.5p, despite posting an 18.7% rise in half-year profits to £908m (€1.34bn) in what it described as a “more challenging year”.
In contrast, Cairn Energy advanced almost 5% or 92p to 2006p after raising its estimates on the amount of oil in place at three key oilfields in India and revealing half year profits rose to £31.3m (€46.5m) against £30.9m (€45.8m) last time.
A clutch of mining stocks followed Cairn on the risers board, with Anglo American adding 47p to 1611p and Rio Tinto up 25p at 2182p.
Oil giants Royal Dutch Shell and BP made significant progress despite the price of a barrel of oil falling back towards the $66 mark. BP, the Footsie’s biggest stock, added more than 1% or 8p to 673p, while Shell lifted 24p to 1940p.
Imperial Tobacco also featured on the top flight risers board, climbing 12p to 1556p after saying trading for the full year was in line with expectations. Rival Gallaher advanced 8.5p to 885.5p.
Outside the top flight, Regent Inns cheered almost 7% or 6.5p to 100p after using its full-year results to provide further evidence that the business had stabilised and sales growth was continuing.
