Card Factory Share News (CARD)

LONDON (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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Randgold Resources, up 1.5%. The gold miner was up on the higher gold price, which was trading at USD1,232.30 an ounce against USD1,218.00, at the at the London equities close Monday.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Royal Dutch Shell 'B', down 2.6%, Shell 'A', down 2.5%, BP down 2.1%. The oil stocks were lower on the weaker oil price, Brent was trading at USD37.81 a barrel compared to USD38.03 at the close Monday.

Tesco, down 2.0%. The supermarket chain was downgraded to Hold from Buy by Deutsche Bank and saw its sales fall again in the latest Kantar data, while its market share continued to fall. Tesco sales fell by 0.2% as its market share declined to 28.1% from 28.4%, although the sales decline eased for the fourth month in a row. Of the big four supermarkets, J Sainsbury continued to beat its rivals in the race to achieve sales growth, while Asda and Wm Morrison Supermarkets saw sales fall once again.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Electrocomponents, up 6.8%. The electronics distributor said its headline pretax profit for its financial year that ended in March will hit the top end of market expectations after good sales in the UK and Europe. The group said said headline pretax profit, which removes pension and restructuring costs, will be at the top end of market expectations. For the year to the end of March 2015, headline pretax profit was GBP80.1 million. Overall, Electrocomponents said revenue in constant currencies grew 2.0% in the fourth quarter and will be up around 3.0% for the full year. The company added it is on track to meet its target of taking GBP25.0 million in annual costs out of the business.

Card Factory, up 2.6%. The gifts and greeting cards retailer reported strikingly higher profit in its recently-ended financial year, boosted by revenue growth in both card and non-card offerings. Card Factory said pretax profit in the year ended January 31 almost doubled to GBP83.7 million from GBP42.7 million the year before, as revenue rose to GBP381.6 million from GBP353.3 million. Like-for-like sales grew by 2.8%, which Card Factory said was driven by improvements in the quality and range of its products, new merchandising initiatives, and further market-share gains as stores mature. Card Factory plans to open a further 50 new stores in the current financial year.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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ICAP, down 2.8%. The interdealer broker and post-trade risk mitigation provider reported a drop in average daily volumes on its EBS currency trading platform in March. Average daily volumes on a single count basis on EBS amounted to USD83.7 billion in March, down 27% year-on-year and 18% from February. EBS and BrokerTec, the fixed income trading platform, together make up the bulk of ICAP's electronic markets business.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Vast Resources, up 70%. The miner said it has decided against giving consent to the second tranche of its financing agreement with Crede Capital, signed in January. Under the subscription agreement between the two, Crede was to provide four tranches of GBP1.25 million at 90-day intervals in exchange for shares and warrants in Vast. However, Vast said it has decided not to consent to the second tranche of this financing agreement as it would result in Crede owning more than 25% of Vast's share capital. Since the financing agreement with Crede was made, Vast said its share price has fallen substantially, meaning the warrants granted to Crede have been highly-dilutive to Vast shareholders.

Mountfield Group, up 30%. The construction company said its Connaught Access Flooring business has experienced a strong start to 2016. Connaught has won 30 new contracts with an aggregate value of GBP1.1 million in the first half, including a GBP400,000 deal for flooring work on a new business centre in Salford, near Manchester. In addition, Connaught is still working on a contract worth in excess of GBP5.0 million for an unnamed City of London headquarters.

Koovs, up 16%. The India-focused fashion retailer said it reached GBP10 million in sales for the first time in its recently-ended financial year and one million registered users, as it focuses on bringing "affordable western fashion to the growing urban, aspirational, youth movement in India". The Indian online fashion retailer said sales in the year ended March 31 almost tripled year-on-year to GBP10 million, a record for the group, as website visits more than doubled. Weekly traffic now consistently exceeds one million visits, Koovs said, with registered users also reaching one million and a 55% increase in conversion rate year-on-year. Koovs also announced that it is collaborating with London-based illustrator and graphic designer Hattie Stewart to create a new collection for autumn 2016.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Blinkx, down 16%. The internet media company said it expects to post lower revenue and an adjusted earnings loss for the year to the end of March following a weakening in the fourth quarter. Blinkx said it expects to deliver revenue of USD165.0 million to USD170.0 million for the full year, down from USD215.0 million a year earlier. Results were hit by seasonality of sales in the fourth quarter and by scaling down non-core operations, Blinkx said.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun

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