Shares in Johnson Matthey fall by nearly 5 percent after the platinumrefiner posts a 19 percent drop in third-quarter profit, missing analystexpectations, on weaker European demand for catalytic converters for dieselvehicles.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley say it will be tough for the company to meetsecond-half market expectations, and it expects consensus for full-year profit,which stands at 386.8 million pounds ($609 million), to come down by around 3percent.
"Given the weaker-than-expected 84.3 million pounds of pretax profit in Q3,Johnson Matthey would have to deliver 111.3 million pounds of pretax profit inQ4 for consensus to be achievable, a sequential final-quarter profit increase ofmore than 30 percent, which we see as unlikely," they write in a research note.
Johnson Matthey's fall also makes it the second-worst performing stock inthe benchmark FTSE 100 index, which is up by 0.1 percent.
For more, please click on
Reuters messaging rm://paul.sandle.reuters.com@reuters.net
($1 = 0.6350 British pounds)