Next Share News (NXT)

LONDON (Alliance News) - London stocks were mixed early Thursday ahead of the Bank of England's latest policy decision, with the FTSE 250 weighed down as Renishaw, IG Group and Ted Baker tumbled. The FTSE 100 index was 25.27 points higher, or 0.4%, at 7,316.28 early Thursday. The FTSE 250 was down 76.22 points or 0.4%, at 19,312.76, while the AIM All-Share index was flat at 920.98.The Cboe UK 100 index was up 0.2% at 12,414.62. The Cboe UK 250 was down 0.6% at 17,297.97, and the Cboe UK Small Companies flat at 11,252.09.In mainland Europe early Thursday, the CAC 40 in Paris and the DAX 30 in Frankfurt were down 0.1% and 0.4% respectively.In Asia on Thursday, the Shanghai Composite in China closed up 0.4%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong closed down 0.9%. Financial markets in Japan were closed for the Vernal Equinox Day holiday.Limiting the FTSE 100's gains on Thursday were ex-dividend stocks, such as Royal Bank of Scotland, down 5.4%, and property investor SEGRO, down 1.8%.Next fell 3.0% as it reported a well-flagged decline in annual profit amid a tough retail environment. For the year ended January 26, the FTSE 100-listed fashion and homewares retailer posted a pretax profit of GBP722.9 million, down 0.4% from GBP726.1 million the year before, but in line with the company's expectations of GBP723 million.Revenue rose to GBP4.17 billion from GBP4.09 billion a year ago. Full-price sales were up 3.1%, broadly in line with Next's guidance of a 3.2% increase, while total sales including markdowns rose 2.6%.The revenue increase was on the back of a solid online performance which saw sales up 15% year-on-year to GBP1.92 billion, offsetting a 7.9% slump in retail sales to GBP1.96 billion. At the bottom of the FTSE 250 was Renishaw, down 12% after the engineer said it expects full-year profit to decline amid a slowdown in encoder product demand in Asia.Renishaw expects to report revenue for the year to the end of June in a range of GBP595 million to GBP620 million, down from GBP635 million to GBP665 million anticipated previously.Pretax profit is expected between GBP123 million and GBP141 million, which would be at least 9.1% lower than the year before."We experienced a slow down in demand in Asia for our encoder products and from large end-user manufacturers of consumer electronic products. Based on recent order trends and customer feedback, we now expect these conditions to continue through the remainder of this financial year," Renishaw said in a statement on Thursday.IG Group Holdings fell 7.9% after the online trading platform said a reduction in market volatility led to a decline in third-quarter revenue. IG's revenue for the third quarter ended March was GBP108.0 million, 12% lower than the second quarter, though client numbers did rise 1% to 125,600.IG said the decline in volatility led to a fall in revenue per client, with February in particular being a period of low volatility and market activity. This is the second quarter affected by new European Securities & Markets Authority regulations regarding the offering of contracts for difference. Looking ahead, IG said annual revenue is difficult to predict given market volatility, but reaffirmed its belief the figure for its year ending June will be lower year-on-year. Theme park and attractions operator Merlin Entertainments sank 5.7% after Berenberg cut its rating on the stock to Sell from Hold. Ted Baker fell 4.8% after reducing its payout amid a drop in annual profit. For the year ended January 26, the upmarket fashion retailer posted pretax profit of GBP50.9 million, down 26% from GBP68.8 million a year ago. Before exceptional items, pretax profit fell 14% to GBP63.0 million.Revenue however, rose 4.4% to GBP617.4 million from GBP591.7 million, on the back of increased sales in all of the company's geographies. Ted Baker reduced its total dividend by 2.5% to 58.6 pence per share from last year's 60.1p. This was after recommending a final payout of 40.7p, lowered from 43.5p a year ago. The economic calendar on Thursday has UK retail sales numbers at 0930 GMT.Headlining the day is the latest interest rate decision from the Bank of England at midday. There will be no press conference with BoE Governor Mark Carney following the decision.It is widely expected the nine-strong MPC will vote to maintain the UK Bank Rate at 0.75%."With key parts of the EU withdrawal process still unresolved, uncertainty around the outlook remains high. Combined with growing headwinds to the global economic outlook, we doubt the MPC will show any urgency to hike at this stage," said Lloyds Banking.The BoE's decision comes following a dovish update from the US Federal Reserve on Wednesday. The US central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged, holding the target range for the Federal Funds Rate at 2.25% to 2.50%, though no longer predicts any rate hikes in 2019. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the US economy "is in a good place" and cited "solid underlying economic fundamentals" of unemployment below 4% and inflation below 2% in announcing the decision of the Federal Open Market Committee after a two-day meeting in Washington.The positive outlook that Powell described includes the committee's estimate that US economic growth this year will be about to 2%, which is lower than its previous forecast and less than the White House's rosier estimate of about 3%.Part of the reason for the Fed's lower growth rate projection is that a global economic tailwind that helped lift the US economy last year is gone, he said, noting that the European and Chinese economies have slowed.The central bank's forward projections also indicated the US interest rates are likely to remain unchanged for the remainder of the year. The forecast for interest rates to be unchanged at the end of the current year compares to the December projections indicating two rate hikes in 2019.UK Prime Minister Theresa May is to appeal to EU leaders to grant her a delay to Brexit as she makes a further attempt to get her withdrawal deal through Parliament.With just eight days before the UK is due to leave the EU, the prime minister will make the case for extending the Article 50 withdrawal process to June 30 at a Brussels summit on Thursday.Ahead of the meeting, European Council President Donald Tusk said a "short" delay should be possible - but only if MPs finally back her deal before the deadline day on March 29.May formally made the request for an extension to the end of June in a letter to Tusk on Wednesday.