FTSE 100 movers: Ocado rallies on Asia deal; St James's Place hit by downgrade

London’s FTSE 100 was down 0.5% at 7,375.97 in afternoon trade on Friday.

Ocado was the standout gainer after the online grocer signed a technology partnership with Japanese supermarket chain Aeon to establish an online business. This marks its first deal in Asia.

Sophie Lund-Yates, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The international march continues. Ocado’s knocking on the door of a brand new market, after already signing big deals in the USA. This is welcome news, because Ocado’s future relies on growing the Solutions business -where it builds state of the art robotic warehouses that fulfil tens of thousands of online orders a week for its partners. Amazon’s move into groceries means it can paint itself as the industry’s answer to Bezos’ retail titan.

"No one should be popping champagne just yet though. This is an exciting announcement, but the proof will be in the pudding. With a sales-based valuation more than double its long-term average, and no real profits expected any time soon, Ocado will have to wait for years to see if the current partnerships pay off. The warehouse fire earlier this year mean operational performance is still under the microscope. But if Ocado can keep its house in order this time, it may catch the eye of further partners, and that’s where future fortunes lie."

Shares of catering group Compass were in the green even as Goldman Sachs reiterated its ‘sell’ rating on the stock and cut its price target to 1,700p from 1,890p.

St James’s Place was in the red, however, as Goldman Sachs downgraded it to ‘sell’ from ‘neutral’ and trimmed the price target to 900p from 980p.

FTSE 100 - Risers

Ocado Group (OCDO) 1,348.00p 11.59%
Hiscox Limited (DI) (HSX) 1,375.00p 1.03%
Compass Group (CPG) 1,899.00p 0.88%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 702.00p 0.86%
Aviva (AV.) 404.90p 0.72%
SEGRO (SGRO) 898.60p 0.60%
Just Eat (JE.) 766.60p 0.60%
Phoenix Group Holdings (PHNX) 748.30p 0.52%
Bunzl (BNZL) 2,129.00p 0.47%
Relx plc (REL) 1,880.00p 0.43%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

St James's Place (STJ) 1,085.00p -3.04%
NMC Health (NMC) 2,509.00p -2.37%
Ferguson (FERG) 6,690.00p -2.19%
Tesco (TSCO) 232.70p -1.98%
Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 61.49p -1.91%
Kingfisher (KGF) 211.60p -1.90%
Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 228.00p -1.77%
Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 4,634.00p -1.66%
Barratt Developments (BDEV) 670.40p -1.56%
Next (NXT) 6,822.00p -1.42%