Ocado Share News (OCDO)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The FTSE 100 on Tuesday was continuing its positive start to the week, supported by gains for individual reasons by constituents such as Ocado, Antofagasta and Standard Life. The pound, meanwhile, was higher despite the fallout from House of Commons Speaker John Bercow seemingly scuppering another meaningful Brexit vote there, with sterling supported by some strong UK labour market statistics.The FTSE 100 index was 41.50 points higher, or 0.6%, at 7,340.69 Tuesday midday. The FTSE 250 was up 42.49 points, or 0.2%, at 19,529.19, while the AIM All-Share index was flat at 920.77.The Cboe UK 100 index was up 0.6% at 12,461.15. The Cboe UK 250 was up 0.4% at 17,527.68, and the Cboe UK Small Companies up 0.2% at 11,192.22."The London gauge is trading higher despite high Brexit drama unfolding in the background after Parliament's Speaker John Bercow blocked the prime minister's plan to put her twice-rejected Brexit deal to a third vote Tuesday," said City Index analyst Fiona Cincotta.Bercow ruled that May cannot bring her EU Withdrawal Agreement back before MPs unless it is substantially different from the package that was decisively defeated last week.The speaker's ruling, announced in an unexpected statement to the Commons, throws a further obstacle in the way of the prime minister's scramble to get a deal agreed by the scheduled date of Brexit of March 29.A government source said it seems "clear that the speaker's motive here is to rule out a [meaningful vote] this week which also stands in the way of a securing a shorter extension".This "leads you to believe what he really wants is a longer extension, where Parliament will take over the process and force a softer form of Brexit".Meanwhile in Dublin, European Council President Donald Tusk will hold talks with Irish Premier Leo Varadkar."With speculation swirling on whether John Bercow's decision will make it more likely for Britain to end up in a hard Brexit situation at the end of March or if it will mean that Brussels will try to impose an extended delay on Brexit, the currency market is trying to find its feet," City Index's Cincotta added.Amid this drama, the pound was higher, quoted at USD1.3292 at midday versus USD1.3227 late Monday.Sterling was supported by some "astonishingly strong" UK jobs data on Tuesday. The unemployment rate for the three months to January was 3.9%, down from 4.0% in the three months to December and at the lowest level since 1975.Both including and excluding bonuses, average weekly earnings rose 3.4% year-on-year in the period. The figure including bonuses was above consensus cited by FXStreet of 3.2%, while the reading stripping out bonuses matched forecasts.This means wage growth has continued to tick ahead of inflation.The ONS in February revealed UK consumer price inflation rose 1.8% on an annual basis in January, slowing from a 2.1% rise in December.ING said the data suggests the UK economy is in better health than thought by many. "UK labour data looks astonishingly strong for an economy that is supposedly slowing on most other measures. If the government gets a long Brexit extension, a Bank of England rate hike is clearly on the table for the summer," said ING economist James Knightley.In mainland Europe on Tuesday, the CAC 40 in Paris and the DAX 30 in Frankfurt were up 0.5% and 0.9% respectively at midday.In the US, Wall Street is on course for a higher open with the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all pointed up 0.4%. In the US economic calendar is the Redbook index at 1255 GMT followed by factory orders at 1400 GMT, while on the corporate side, parcel delivery firm FedEx reports third-quarter results after the market close. In London, Ocado was supporting gains for the FTSE 100 as it rose 3.4% on the back of a resilient first-quarter update.For the 13 weeks to March 3, the online grocer reported an 11% rise in revenue to GBP404.0 million from GBP363.4 million a year prior. This was despite a fire at its Andover automated warehouse at the beginning of February, which knocked revenue by 1.2% in the quarter.The company is currently "thoroughly" investigating the causes of the fire, however, an initial assessment showed no "significant implications" for the risk profile of the assets or the viability of its model, it added.Meanwhile, to offset the fire damage, the online supermarket continued to ramp-up its Erith CFC, which is now processing almost 37,000 orders a week. Miner Antofagasta was among the risers as well, up 2.9% despite posting a reduction in annual earnings.Pretax profit for 2018 was USD1.25 billion, 32% lower than in 2017, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation declined 14% to USD2.23 billion. Nonetheless, this fall in earnings was in line with consensus, which had seen Ebitda at USD2.22 billion.Commenting on the outlook for copper, Chief Executive Ivan Arriagada said: "As US-China trade negotiations have progressed during the first few months of this year the copper price has traded favourably."We expect price volatility to persist in the short term but consider the fundamentals of the copper market will remain positive and the supply deficit will increase during the year."Standard Life Aberdeen was up 2.3% after an arbitral tribunal set up to settle a dispute between the asset manager and Lloyds Banking over the management of Scottish Widows assets ruled in its favour. The tribunal ruled that Lloyds was not entitled to terminate the management agreement in place between the two firms. Standard Life Aberdeen said it is "carefully considering" its appropriate next steps.Standard Life Aberdeen will continue to manage the Scottish Widows assets, which, as of December 31, stood at about GBP100 billion.Lloyds Banking shares were up 0.8% at midday.J Sainsbury gained 2.3% after confirming it has submitted a response to the UK Competition & Markets Authority in defence of its tie-up with Walmart-owned Asda.This comes after the UK competition regulator released a preliminary statement in mid-February which all but extinguished hopes that the merger would go forward due to significant competition concerns.On Tuesday, Sainsbury's said that, together with Asda, it "strongly disagrees" with the CMA's findings and has found "significant errors" in the regulator's analysis.Among the "errors", was the CMA's choice of a threshold for identifying competition problems that "does not fit the facts and evidence in the case". Furthermore, the threshold was set at an "unprecedentedly low level", therefore generating an unreasonably high number of areas of concern, Sainsbury's explained. The largest faller of the session was Evraz, down 5.4% at 595.80 pence each. The Russian steelmaker said four investors have finalised the sale of a combined 25.4 million shares in the company.Greenleas International Holdings, Abiglaze, Crosland Global, and Toshi Holdings offered the shares, equivalent to 1.8% of the FTSE 100-listed steelmaker, in a placing at 595 pence. The sale was worth GBP151.1 million.FTSE 250-listed Ferrexpo slipped 8.9%. The iron pellet producer said a review of funds paid to a Ukrainian charity indicate the funds may not all have been used for their stated purpose and, as a result, will delay 2018 its financial results to April 3.In early February, Ferrexpo said it would conduct a comprehensive review into Blooming Land after uncovering issues with the charity's accounts.The bank statements from the charity - which is separately managed from Ferrexpo - revealed "as yet unexplained discrepancies".As well as discovering problems with bank statements, Ferrexpo has now identified "a number of discrepancies" on the application of funds by Blooming Land - which, according to Ferrexpo, suggest the funds "may not have been used for their stated purpose".Elsewhere on the London Main Market, shares in Bonmarche tumbled 26% on a fresh profit warning. The fashion retailer now expects to post an annual pretax loss of between GBP5.0 million and GBP6.0 million, as weaker sales in March offset sales gains made in the previous months.Bonmarche already lowered its profit guidance back in December, stating that it expected between breakeven and a GBP4.0 million loss at the pretax level. At the end of November, the firm had guided for its adjusted annual pretax profit to be GBP5.5 million. On AIM, ASOS dipped 7.5% after it reported a double-digit increase in its interim revenue though said its US performance was "behind" plans. For the six months to February 28, ASOS's revenue rose 14% year-on-year to GBP1.31 billion from GBP1.16 billion.In the UK, the online fashion retailer's core market, retail sales jumped 16% in the six-month-period to GBP481.5 million, significantly outperforming a struggling retail market. They were up 14% in the three months to February 28.US sales rose 8% to GBP161.6 million in the half, up 4% in the second quarter amid dispatch issues as demand exceeded expectations."Our US performance was behind our plans during the period. As our Atlanta warehouse went fully online, demand far exceeded our expectations. Whilst very encouraging for the longer term, this caused a significant short-term dispatch back log which we have now cleared," ASOS said.