WINNERS & LOSERS SUMMARY: Tesco Sinks After Operating Profit Miss

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Wednesday.----------FTSE 100 - WINNERS----------Vodafone Group, up 1.7%. The telecommunications firm said its Italian unit has bought spectrums to enable the deployment of 5G technology for EUR2.40 billion. Vodafone said the spectrum will deliver network operating efficiencies able to meet future increases in data traffic. The spectrum was acquired in an auction by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development and includes ranges of 3700 megahertz to 80 MHz for EUR1.68 billion, 700 MHz to 2x 10 MHz for EUR683 million, and 26 gigahertz to 200 MHz for EUR33 million. Vodafone Italy is aiming to make Milan the "5G capital of Europe". It expects to have 5G coverage in 80% of the city area by December 2018. WM Morrison Supermarkets, up 1.0%. Credit Suisse raised the supermarket chain to Outperform from Neutral. ----------FTSE 100 - LOSERS----------Tesco, down 8.5%. The supermarket chain's shares were lower despite reporting strong first half results. For the six months to August 25, the grocer posted a rise in pretax profit of 2% year-on-year to GBP564 million from GBP553 million. Revenue, including VAT and fuel, came in 12% higher than the prior year at GBP31.73 billion versus GBP28.33 billion. Excluding VAT and fuel revenue increased 13% to GBP28.29 billion from GBP25.16 billion. Tesco's operating profit rose 24.4% from last year, to GBP944 million, although this was shy of the GBP978 million consensus estimate forecast by analysts. By geography, the UK and Ireland, Tesco's biggest market, saw like-for-like sales up 3.8% year-on-year to GBP25.70 billion, Central Europe sales dipped 1.5% to GBP3.11 billion due to changed to Sunday opening regulations in Poland and Asia sales declined 7% to GBP2.36 billion. "While the continued growth in sales is encouraging the profit miss clearly rattled the market today," said Share Centre's Ian Forrest.Ferguson, down 1.8%. The plumbing and heating products supplier was cut to Neutral from Overweight by JPMorgan. ----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS----------Topps Tiles, up 12%. The kitchen and bathroom tile retailer said it expects its annual adjusted profit to come in "slightly ahead" of the top end of current market expectations, after improving trading during its fourth quarter. Currently, the market sees Topps Tiles' adjusted pretax profit between GBP14.6 million and GBP15.2 million, with consensus at GBP14.9 million. For its year ended September 29, the tile retailer expects adjusted revenue around GBP215 million, an increase of 1.5% on the prior year at GBP211.8 million. On a like-for-like basis, revenue was flat year-on-year compared to a 2.9% decline for financial 2017. "Trading over the fourth quarter has seen an improvement due to a combination of the continued effectiveness of our strategy and outperformance of our market," the company said.Amerisur Resources, up 7.2%. The oil and gas company said it has received a "very positive" result from testing on the T sand interval on its Pintadillo-1 well in Colombia. The T sand is flowing at 590 barrels of oil a day with "strong" wellhead pressure. The water cut is below 1%, and this is falling, Amerisur added. It perforated a 9 feet interval, within the overall 15 feet of net pay found by the company. Amerisur is to remap the T sand and the U sand to assess the size of the discovery, with drilling options on Pintadillo to be assessed after.ITE Group, up 4.5%. Euromoney Institutional Investor said it sold the Mining Indaba business to ITE for GBP30.1 million. The business runs the annual "Investing in African Mining Indaba" in Cape Town, with the 24th edition held last February. ITE said the deal is being funded on a cash-free, debt-free basis, and is part of its plan to develop a "world leading" portfolio of events. ITE also gave a trading update Wednesday, saying "the majority" of its key markets recorded revenue growth for the 12 months to last Sunday. Revenue is guided to be around GBP175 million, from GBP153 million a year prior, with like-for-like revenue growth at approximately 10%. ----------