Plunging Sainsbury’s shares lead FTSE 100 lower
The supermarket was one of the retailers struggling in trading on Wednesday.
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Your support makes all the difference.Sainsbury’s has led a fall of the food retailers which helped drag the FTSE 100 lower for the second day running.
The supermarket reported higher sales over the Christmas period but was hit as non-food sales struggled.
The FTSE 100 fell 32.2 points, or 0.42%, to end the day at 7651.76.
Sainsbury’s shares closed down 6.3%, Ocado’s dropped 3.1%, while shares in Marks & Spencer were 3.0% lower.
“In London the FTSE 100 has seen a more negative tone to trading today, hit hard by falls for Sainsbury’s and Admiral,” said Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at online trading platform IG.
“The former’s good Christmas food performance did offset its poorer sales in other categories and, given this was the problem for M&S for so long, investors will fret that Sainsbury’s is heading in a similar direction.
“While housebuilders have propped up the index following Persimmon’s update, broader risk-off sentiment could prevail tomorrow and beyond should US inflation show signs of reviving.”
At the end of the day in Europe, Frankfurt’s Dax index rose 0.01% while the Cac 40 in Paris closed down 0.01%.
In New York a little while after markets had closed in Europe, the S&P 500 had gained 0.16% while the Dow Jones was 0.05% higher
On currency markets, the pound gained 0.14% against the dollar at 1.2728 but dropped 0.11% against the euro at 1.1614.
In company news, Persimmon said that it had completed the construction of 9,922 homes in 2023. It was a third lower than the year before but still significantly ahead of the 9,500 it had forecast.
Shares closed up 6.3% in London after the news.
Elsewhere, shares in Marks Electrical were 23.6% lower after it warned that highly price-conscious customers were putting the business under pressure.
Annual underlying earnings are expected to fall to £5-6 million, compared to the £7.5 million it made in 2022.
The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were Berkeley Group, up 112p to 4,898p, Intertek, up 94p to 4,290p, Intercontinental Hotels Group, up 122p to 7,186p, Taylor Wimpey, up 2.35p to 148.4p, and Burberry, up 22p to 1,403p.
The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were Sainsbury’s, down 19.4p to 286.5p, Admiral Group, down 153p to 2,569p, BT, down 4.4p to 116.6p, Flutter Entertainment, down 470p to 12,845p, and Ocado, down 22.2p to 685.8p.