WINNERS & LOSERS SUMMARY: Card Factory Falls On High Street Challenges

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Tuesday.----------FTSE 100 - WINNERS----------Next, up 8.0%. The clothing and homewares retailer upped its annual profit guidance after sales growth beat expectations in the first half of its financial year. Next said pretax profit improved slightly to GBP311.1 million in the six months to July 28 compared to GBP309.4 million reported a year earlier, as revenue climbed to GBP1.96 billion from GBP1.90 billion. First-half full price sales came in 4.5% higher year-on-year, Next said, which was ahead of the 1.0% annual growth guidance given in January and the 2.2% growth forecast issued in May. The company now expects 3.0% year-on-year growth in full price sales for its current financial year. As such, Next raised its guidance for full-year pretax profit by GBP10 million to GBP727 million. The year before, annual pretax profit totalled GBP726.1 million.----------Glencore, up 2.7%. The miner and commodities trader said it had extended its share buyback programme by a further USD1 billion by February 2019. In July, Glencore announced an initial USD1 billion buyback. As of Monday, the miner and commodities trader had acquired shares worth USD939.1 million under this programme. This represented around 230.2 million shares. The new extended buyback will be complete by February 2019. All repurchased shares will be held in treasury. In addition, Morgan Stanley raised the stock to Overweight from Equal Weight. ----------Royal Dutch Shell 'A' and 'B' both up 1.5%, BP up 1.6%. The oil majors were tracking spot oil prices higher quoted at USD81.84 a barrel compared to USD81.37 late Monday. Brent hit an intraday high of USD82.17 in morning trade, its highest since late 2014. Oil prices surged after OPEC rejected calls by US President Donald Trump to raise production over the weekend. ----------FTSE 100 - LOSERS----------British American Tobacco, down 2.0%. The cigarette maker said it appointed Chief Operating Officer Jack Bowles as its new boss to replacing long-standing Chief Executive Officer Nicandro Durante in April 2019. Bowles - at BAT since 2004 - will become CEO-designate from the start of November. He will then replace Durante at the head of the London- and Johannesburg-listed firm from the start of April 2019. Last Tuesday, Durante - who has been with BAT for nearly 37 years, eight as boss - announced his intention to retire. At the time of this announcement, media reports had suggested Bowles was a "frontrunner" to replace him.----------Smiths Group, down 1.0%. Deutsche Bank cut the engineer to Hold from Buy. ----------FTSE 250 - WINNERS----------McCarthy & Stone, up 7.0%. The retirement housebuilder said it has concluded its strategic review, outlining its financial targets for its 2021 financial year and the changes the group will make to achieve them. For the 2021 financial year, McCarthy & Stone is aiming to achieve an improvement in operating margins to 15% or more, cost savings of GBP40 million per annum, and cumulative cash savings of GBP70 million. It also wants to reduce its capital employed by GBP70 million between 2018 and 2021. For the year to the end of August, McCarthy & Stone expects to pay a dividend consistent with the prior year, when it was 5.4 pence per share. In addition, the company said it has appointed Interim Chief Executive Officer John Tonkiss to the role on a permanent basis, with immediate effect.----------Ferrexpo, up 3.5%. Citigroup raised the iron pellet producer to Buy from Neutral. ----------Savills, up 3.1%. Peel Hunt upgraded the estate agent to Buy from Hold. ----------FTSE 250 - LOSERS----------Card Factory, down 4.0%. The greeting card retailer said revenue and profit rose in the first half, but like-for-like sales slipped a little amid a weak UK consumer environment. Card Factory said pretax profit grew 17% in the six months to the end of July to GBP27.2 million from GBP23.2 million reported a year ago, as revenue increased by 3.2% to GBP185.3 million from GBP179.6 million. Card Factory maintained its interim payout at 2.9 pence per share. In addition, it declared a special dividend of 5.0p. On the like-for-like basis, sales fell by 0.2%, impacted by lower high street footfall in a weak consumer environment, the company said. Trading performance at the Getting Personal division remains challenging, the company noted, with increased price competition and rising costs of customer acquisition impacting the business.----------Spire Healthcare, down 3.2%. Liberum resumed coverage on the private hospital group with a Hold rating.----------JD Wetherspoon, down 2.5%. Peel Hunt downgraded the pub chain to Hold from Add. ----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS----------Learning Technologies Group, up 12%. The learning software and services provider swung to a profit for the first half of 2018, on double-digit revenue growth. For the six months to the end of June, Learning Technologies reported a pretax profit of GBP1.3 million, swinging from a loss of GBP2.3 million a year before. Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes more than doubled to GBP8.9 million from GBP3.8 million, as margins increased to 26% in the period from 18% in the prior year following the successful restructuring of talent management software platform NetDimensions (Holdings). This was on revenue that rose by 60% to GBP33.8 million from GBP21.1 million the prior year, due to doubled revenue from recurring licence fees and support contracts to GBP16.5 million from GBP7.7 million. Learning Technologies proposed an interim dividend of 0.15 pence per share, up 67% from 0.09p the year before.----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS----------Low & Bonar, down 22%. The performance materials maker said annual profit is set to be lower than expected due to increased cost of key materials. Low & Bonar, which makes advanced materials using polymer-based yarns and fibres, said the price of key polymers has unexpectedly increased during the second half of its financial year ending November 30. High competition means the firm has been unable to pass on these costs to customers, despite sales rising as expected. These issues, Low & Bonar added, mean it has also been unable to reduce its debt as quickly as planned. Margins have been further hit by its Coated Technical Textiles business's ongoing production issues. Margin recovery is expected to "take some time". Further, Low & Bonar also said Chief Financial Officer Simon Webb will be leaving for personal reasons. It did not give a date for his departure, but said Webb, who only started the role in April, will stay until a successor is found.----------