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(Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Wednesday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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Taylor Wimpey, up 2.4%. Credit Suisse raised the housebuilder to Outperform from Neutral. Also on Wednesday, figures from Halifax showed UK house prices continued to rack up strong growth in September with the average price now approaching GBP250,000. On a monthly basis, house prices were up 1.6% in September, following growth of 1.7% in both August and July. Annually, they rocketed 7.3% - the strongest growth in over four years and following a rise of 5.2% in August.
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Tesco, up 2.0%. The grocer posted a substantially higher interim profit, with an excellent online performance, and said it has appointed Tate & Lyle's current chief financial officer as its own CFO. Supermarket chain Tesco, which is headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, recorded a GBP551 million pretax profit for the 26 weeks ended August 29, up 29% from GBP428 million the year before. This as revenue increased to GBP28.72 billion from GBP28.51 billion after a particularly strong performance in its UK & Republic of Ireland region, where revenue rose 1.7% to GBP26.34 billion from GBP25.90 billion. Group sales were up 6.5% at actual exchange rates, with a 69% increase in online sales - the rate of growth hitting 90% in the second quarter. The grocer has increased its interim dividend per share by 21% to 3.20p from 2.65p. In terms of outlook, Tesco is expecting to report a "broadly even balance to the year in terms of 1H/2H retail profitability" with retail operating profit in its current financial year to be at least the same level as financial 2020 on a continuing operations basis. It expects Tesco Bank to report a loss of between GBP175 million and GBP200 million in financial 2021.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Compass, down 1.8%. Bank of America cut the contract caterer to Neutral from Buy.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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FirstGroup, up 7.9%. Citigroup raised the transport operator to Buy from Neutral.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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Tui, down 5.4%. The Anglo-German tour firm said Chief Financial Officer Brigit Conix will depart at the end of 2020. Sebastian Ebel, already a member of the company's executive board, has been appointed as CFO with effect from January 1.
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OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Helios Underwriting, up 22% at 117.00 pence. The London-based investment vehicle which acquires and consolidates underwriting capacity at Lloyd's confirmed it is considering a GBP20.0 million fundraise via the issue of new shares. "The company currently has indications of interest for the substantial part of the fundraising, including sizeable orders from insurance specialist institutional investors," said Helios. Discussions with potential investors have "crystallised around" an issue price of 120p per share, a 25% premium to Tuesday's closing price. The stock closed at 96p on Tuesday.
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OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Kromek, down 23%. The detection technology supplier reported revenue of GBP13.1 million for its financial year ended April 30, down from GBP14.5 million the year before. Pretax loss widened substantially to GBP18.3 million from GBP1.3 million. Kromek took an exceptional item of GBP13.1 million relating to Covid-19. Impact of pandemic has continued into first four months of the new financial year but business patterns now returning to normal. The board said it is "cautiously optimistic" for the year head. "We entered 2019/20 in a stronger position than ever before, increasing revenues by 43% in the first half. However, the pandemic caused markets to shut down and materially impacted both our global customer base and supply chain resulting in overall revenues for full year 2019 to be lower than the previous year. However, the mitigation measures and operational progress we have made during the year means we are well-positioned to rebound strongly," said Chief Executive Arnab Basu.
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By Lucy Heming;Â lucyheming@alliancenews.com
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