FTSE 100 movers: John Wood and retailers lead decline

The FTSE 100 index fell 0.9% to 6,782.88 on Monday, led lower by a band of retailers and an oil engineer.

Retailers Next, Marks & Spencer, Ocado and Kingfisher were prominent among the fallers on Monday. Investors were exiting the already-embattled sector after an major profit warning from online retailer Asos, echoing recent comments from Mike Ashley’s that November trading had been “unbelievably bad”.

“The significance of the warning by ASOS, one of the leading online retailers, could hardly be higher for the consumer sector," said Kate Heseltine, analyst at Edison Investment Research. "Coming at the end of its first quarter, it entails a substantial judgement call for the rest of the year to August 2019 – a call that management has made negatively."

Asos flagged a high level of discounting and promotional activity across the market, resulting in lower average selling prices, which have not been compensated for by an increase in the number of items bought by each customer. Combined with a 3% fall in the average basket value, chief executive Nick Beighton said it was a trend he has not seen in the last nine years.

The poor weather this past weekend across the UK could hardly have come at a worse time for the sector, said Jamie Constable at broker N+1Singer said: "Footfall was hit hard so having a good online offer will have been key in order to attract Christmas sales. I suspect we will see a number of the challenged offers out there fall over in the next few weeks."

The biggest faller was oil engineer Wood Group, which again was from read-across from a sector peer as there was little movement in oil prices after they dropped at the end of last week. This time it was Hunting, where the energy services group sounded a note of caution over its 2019 outlook with the possibility of deferred orders.

Hunting said “some market softness” had been observed within businesses focused on US onshore operations as public holidays and the exhaustion of clients' budgets marginally impacted daily sales run-rates.

Top riser was BHP Group as it announced a share buyback and a special dividend after selling off its US oil and gas assets.

BHP said it had bought back around 8.3% of its shares and announced that the board had determined to pay a special dividend of $1.02 per share to be paid early next year.

Just Eat was second on the leaderboard after activist investor Cat Rock popped its head above the parapet to call for changes from the takeaway food marketplace.

US-based Cat Rock, which owns around 2% of the company, called for management to “address key issues” and produce a new three-year plan within 30 days, or failing that to pursue "strategic alternatives" of selling off non-core assets including Brazil-based iFood and other non-European businesses.

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 6,768.83 -1.12%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 17,441.35 -1.28%
techMARK (TASX) 3,319.02 -1.23%

FTSE 100 - Risers

BHP Group (BHP) 1,658.00p 2.56%
Just Eat (JE.) 585.60p 1.49%
Rio Tinto (RIO) 3,728.00p 1.43%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 786.60p 1.11%
Relx plc (REL) 1,644.50p 0.95%
Glencore (GLEN) 291.60p 0.67%
Smiths Group (SMIN) 1,376.00p 0.29%
Anglo American (AAL) 1,698.00p 0.21%
United Utilities Group (UU.) 756.40p 0.03%
Rentokil Initial (RTO) 332.00p 0.00%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Wood Group (John) (WG.) 534.40p -5.88%
Next (NXT) 4,086.00p -5.81%
easyJet (EZJ) 1,045.00p -5.17%
Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) 250.10p -5.05%
Ocado Group (OCDO) 774.40p -4.98%
Kingfisher (KGF) 214.80p -4.70%
NMC Health (NMC) 2,922.00p -4.57%
GVC Holdings (GVC) 689.50p -4.44%
Micro Focus International (MCRO) 1,403.00p -4.07%
Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 3,294.00p -4.02%