FTSE 100 movers: JD Fashion rallies on results; Just Eat shares drop
London's FTSE 100 was down 0.2% at 7,223.45 in afternoon trade on Tuesday as investors mulled the latest UK jobs numbers and a drop in China's producer price index.
Just Eat was under pressure again, dragged lower by Takeaway.com after Delivery Hero said it had entered into a sale agreement over 3 million Takeaway shares at a floor price of €73.
Just Eat and Dutch rival Takeaway.com announced in July that they had agreed the terms on a £9bn merger.
Software company Sage was in the red after confirming late on Monday that it is considering the sale of its payments-processing business.
On the upside, sportswear retailer JD Sports was the standout gainer as it posted a 6.6% jump in interim pre-tax profit to £129.9m on revenue of £2.7bn, up 47% on the same period a year ago, and said full-year results should come in at the mid-point of expectations.
Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: "JD Sports is proof that the best-run retail businesses still have a chance of making big money in a difficult market.
"It appears that JD’s latest sales boost has been helped by getting more interested customers to open their wallets and actually buy items rather than simply browse, as per the reference to having ‘improved conversion’.
"Now that it has made a massive success of the UK market, JD’s story is now one of international roll-out. Europe is already off to the races with the company deciding to increase the physical size of new stores, showing confidence that consumers like its offering.
"Asia Pacific’s growth is being held back by property availability but operations in the US are slowly expanding."
Banks were among the best performers, with Barclays, Lloyds, Standard Chartered and RBS all higher. All bar StanChart have warned in recent days that they will incur additional charges from a last-minute surge in payment protection insurance claims.
FTSE 100 - Risers
JD Sports Fashion (JD.) 680.36p 7.55%
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 447.60p 5.69%
Barclays (BARC) 147.90p 5.06%
Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 52.20p 4.03%
Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 207.80p 3.49%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 682.10p 3.47%
Aviva (AV.) 387.35p 3.46%
Centrica (CNA) 69.94p 3.16%
Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 154.30p 3.14%
Persimmon (PSN) 1,953.00p 2.87%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
Just Eat (JE.) 707.60p -6.89%
Aveva Group (AVV) 3,486.00p -4.70%
London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) 6,756.00p -4.58%
Rentokil Initial (RTO) 428.10p -4.57%
Experian (EXPN) 2,464.00p -4.31%
Spirax-Sarco Engineering (SPX) 7,785.00p -4.01%
Sage Group (SGE) 668.20p -3.55%
Relx plc (REL) 1,849.26p -3.46%
Compass Group (CPG) 1,967.50p -3.32%
Halma (HLMA) 1,912.50p -3.21%