LONDON MARKET MIDDAY: Ex-Dividend Stocks And TUI Push FTSE 100 Lower

LONDON (Alliance News) - A host of ex-dividend stocks were weighing down the FTSE 100 on Thursday, with a fall in shares of holiday firm TUI adding to the index's decline, while the pound firmed but remained below USD1.29.Sterling managed to edge higher as Thursday's session progressed, quoted at USD1.2897 at midday, compared to USD1.2888 late Wednesday. Sterling had slipped to its worst level since late August 2017 of USD1.2841 early Thursday morning."With the pound erasing its early losses Thursday's trading was pretty dull, something unlikely to change after the US open...while it is light years away from posting anything resembling an actual recovery, the pound has managed to edge into the green," commented Spreadex analyst Connor Campbell.The FTSE 100 index was down 0.7%, or 52.85 points, at 7,723.80. The mid-cap FTSE 250 index was down 0.1%, or 24.00 points, at 20,746.64, while the AIM All-Share index was up 0.3% at 1,087.50.The Cboe UK 100 was down 0.6% at 13,094.14, the Cboe UK 250 up 0.1% at 18,859.95, and the Cboe UK Small Companies flat at 12,356.19.In mainland Europe on Thursday, the CAC 40 in Paris and DAX 30 in Frankfurt were down 0.1% and up 0.5% respectively at midday.In the US, stocks are pointed to a slightly higher open, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both seen 0.1% higher but the Dow Jones called flat. After Wall Street closes on Thursday, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp publishes results. In the US economic calendar are producer prices at 1330 BST. Continuing and initial jobless claims are due at 1330 BST.Holding back London's FTSE 100 at midday were a host of ex-dividend stocks, meaning no buyers no longer qualify for the latest payouts. Among them was telecommunications firm BT Group, down 4.3%, Direct Line Insurance Group, down 2.9%, and Smirnoff vodka-owner Diageo, down 1.8%.The worst performing blue-chip, however, was travel operator TUI as it sank 7.4%. Despite reiterating its annual earnings guidance, news of a 27% drop in third quarter profit was ill-received by investors.For the three months to June-end, TUI recorded pretax profit of EUR147.5 million, down from EUR203.3 million recorded in the comparative year ago period, on a revenue of EUR5.02 billion and EUR4.78 billion, respectively. The drop in quarterly pretax profit was blamed upon a decline in financial income and increased cost of sales. The rise in revenue was credited to 5% growth in customer volumes, good portfolio performance, and additional hotel and cruise ship capacity. "The market appears to be sceptical of TUI's pledge to achieve full-year guidance, perhaps mindful of its rival Thomas Cook guiding for results to be at the lower end of expectations last week," said AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould. Legal & General was 1.0% lower after the life insurance and financial services company reported a drop in interim profit but upped its dividend.In the six months ended June, Legal & General's pretax profit decreased 19% to GBP942 million from GBP1.16 billion the year before. The FTSE 100-listed company attributed the drop to "lower positive investment variance" as a result of volatility in global financial markets to GBP33 million from GBP175 million the year before.The company is proposing an interim dividend of 4.60 pence per share, a 7.0% increase from the 4.30p paid last year.Cineworld Group and Card Factory were topping and tailing the FTSE 250 at midday, with the cinema chain gaining 7.7% and the cards retailer shedding 9.6%.Cineworld said interim profit jumped, boosted by its acquisition of American cinema chain Regal Entertainment Group, to USD160.2 million from USD60.5 million the year before. Cineworld's revenue quadrupled to USD1.86 billion from USD528.7 million.The second largest cinema chain in the world, by number of screens, posted a 12% increase in UK revenue to USD353.7 million from USD317.0 million despite a 2.7% decrease in admissions to 25.6 millionCard Factory, meanwhile, tumbled after it warned annual earnings will be lower than last year following a tough first half. The retailer said for the first half to July 31, total group sales grew by 3.2% compared to a 6.1% growth a year before. Like-for-like sales were down by 0.2% compared to 3.1% growth in the first half of the year before.Chief Executive Karen Hubbard said: "We continue to experience a weak consumer environment, made all the more challenging by the impact of this year's extreme weather conditions on high street footfall."The retailer said that due to the weather, in addition to UK consumer "uncertainty", it now sees underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for the year ending January 2019 to be within a range of GBP89 million to GBP91 million.For the financial year ended in 2018, the company posted underlying Ebitda of GBP94.0 million. This, in turn, had been 4.6% lower than the year before.Among other risers in the FTSE 250 on Thursday were Capita, up 6.4%, and UDG Healthcare, up 1.7%. Jefferies raised its rating on both the companies to Buy from Hold.Security services provider G4S was down 8.9% after reporting a large drop in interim profit and revenue due to currency movements and business disposals.The firm said pretax profit decreased 37% in the six months ended June to GBP139 million from GBP219 million the year before. Revenue decreased 7.5% to GBP3.67 billion from GBP3.97 billion.Currency movements contributed a GBP10 million loss to profit and a GBP173 million loss to revenue year-on-year. Excluding the effects of currency movements, profit fell due to weaker trading in the company's Europe & Middle East Secure Solutions division as well as lower revenue and increased business costs in its Cash Solutions division. G4S's revenue also suffered from business disposals in Hungary, Israel and its Youth Services business in the US.