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London open: Stocks fall amid slate of company news
UK stocks slid on Wednesday as investors waded through a plethora of corporate announcements.
Sainsbury’s shares fell after the supermarket reported a 13.8% drop in full year underlying pre-tax profit to £587m as sales declined and the group grappled with the industry price war and ensuring food price deflation.
Royal Dutch Shell slumped as it posted a drop in first-quarter earnings on Wednesday in the oil giant’s first results since the takeover of BG Group.
Next rallied despite warning that sales and profits could be lower than previously forecast due to a potential slowdown in consumer spending. “We believe it is unlikely (but possible) that sales will deteriorate further, and we have seen a significant improvement over the last few days as temperatures have risen,” the company said.
Ryanair flew higher after saying traffic rose 10% in April to a record 9.9m customers from 9m in the same month last year.
BAE Systems gained as reported a good start to the new financial year, with directors confident the good momentum is in line with full year targets.
BHP Billiton edged lower on news that federal prosecutors in Brazil have launched a $43bn lawsuit against the company’s part-owned Samarco Mineração mining unit to claim compensation for the dam disaster last November.
In economic data, the Markit/CIPS purchasing managers’ index on UK construction will be released at 0930 BST, with analysts expecting a slowdown in sector growth for April. It comes a day after the UK manufacturing PMI showed growth eased in April.
Eurozone retail sales are due at 1000 BST, followed by the US ADP jobs report at 1315 BST, the Markit US services PMI at 1445 BST, ISM’s non-manufacturing composite at 1500 BST, and factory orders and durable goods orders at 1500 BST.
US weekly crude inventories data from the Department of Energy will be also released at 1530 BST.
Oil prices were sitting higher in morning trade with Brent crude up 0.31% to $45.11 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate up 0.61% to $43.92 per barrel.
