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(Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Tuesday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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WM Morrison Supermarkets, up 3.0%. Shares in the supermarket chain were higher despite the company saying challenging trading conditions and sustained consumer uncertainty led to a sales fall in the 22 weeks to January 5. During the period, the grocer said like-for-like sales, excluding fuel, were down 1.7% year-on-year. The decline was solely due to a fall in retail sales, as like-for-like performance in the wholesale unit was flat year-on-year. Including fuel, like-for-like sales decline 2.8% year-on-year during the 22 weeks. The firm reiterated its full-year guidance, expecting pretax profit before exceptional costs to be in line with analysts' forecasts. Morrisons ends its financial year on February 2. "Looking ahead, Morrison has a potentially lucrative growth lever at its disposal. While its current online offering is pretty paltry compared to rivals, it strengthened ties with Amazon last year. Helping the online giant upscale its own delivery service is a good place to be in our view," said Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Sophie Lund-Yates.
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RSA Insurance, up 1.5%. JPMorgan raised the insurer to Overweight from Neutral.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Standard Life Aberdeen, down 2.8%. The asset manager was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral by Exane BNP and to Neutral from Overweight by JPMorgan.
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Rentokil Initial, down 2.5%. Credit Suisse cut the pest control company to Neutral from Outperform.
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SSE, down 1.0%. Goldman Sachs cut the energy company to Neutral from Buy.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Premier Oil, up 13%. The oil and gas company said it is to buy two North Sea assets from oil major BP and has also built up its stake in a soon-to-be-producing field. Premier is buying the Andrew Area and Shearwater assets from oil major BP for USD625 million. Andrew Area includes five fields producing 18,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, and Shearwater 25 million barrels of oil equivalent of reserves. The company also has taken 25% more of Tolmount off Dana Petroleum for USD191 million, and a potential USD55 million more. Tolmount, a gas field, is expected to come onstream at the end of 2020. Overall, these acquisitions will add 23,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of production to Premier's portfolio and are forecast to generate over USD1 billion of free cash flow to the end of 2023 which will help it reduce its heavy debt. In 2019, Premier said net debt has reduced by more than USD330 million to USD1.99 billion. BP shares were down 0.7%.
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Marks & Spencer, up 3.7%. Berenberg double upgraded the high street stalwart to Buy from Sell.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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Aston Martin Lagonda, down 10%. The luxury carmaker issued another profit warning due to continuation of challenging trading conditions and said that it continues to review funding options, including a potential equity capital raise. The challenging trading conditions disclosed in November continued through the peak delivery period of December, Aston Martin said, resulting in lower sales, higher selling costs and lower margins. Aston Martin now sees 2019 adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation to come in at a range between GBP130 million and GBP140 million and margin between 12.5% to 13.5%. In 2018, adjusted Ebitda came in at GBP247 million. "Aston Martin has previously talked about relying too heavily on its ties to the James Bond franchise. Once the latest film had been released, the hype died down and so did the number of people talking about the brand. Efforts to refresh the brand with more of an emotional angle don't appear to have had the desired effect," said AJ Bell's Russ Mould.
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OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Rockhopper Exploration, up 32%. The oil and gas explorer said it has signed a milestone farm-in deal at the Sea Lion project in the Falkland Islands. Heads of terms have been signed with Navitas Petroleum, which is taking a 30% stake in the project. Rockhopper will hold 30% after the deal, and operator Premier Oil 40%. This transaction, Rockhopper said, increases the likelihood the project will be able to secure senior debt financing for the first phase of development. Rockhopper's costs for phase one will be met by a combination of cash & carry loans from Premier and Navitas, it added. It will get up to USD48 million from the two partners in future depending on future phases of development. Rockhopper hopes for sale & purchase agreement to be signed during the first quarter of the year.
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OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Carr's Group, down 9.2%. The farm supplies firm said its group performance in the 18 week period to last Saturday was in line with management expectations but its Agriculture unit struggled. Carr's said its Agriculture performance in the same period was behind board expectations, due to the "mild weather". The company said the Agriculture markets have "remained challenging". The Carlisle-based firm said the "unseasonably mild and dry weather" added further pressure to the unit, resulting in less spend by farms on feed and animal supplements. Turning to the Engineering unit, Carr's said it experienced a "slow start" to the year - due to contract phasing - but it expects its full year performance to be slightly ahead of board expectations on the back of its strong pipeline.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com
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