AA sinks further into quagmire as Credit Suisse puts the boot in

THE topped off a troubling week of trading with another share price plunge after Credit Suisse said that it envisaged more speed bumps on the roadside rescuer’s path to redemption.

With its boss sacked for a “Clarkson moment”, one of the original major backers of its 2014 IPO shorting the stock, and now analysts delivering their damning verdict on the quagmire at the company, shares have plummeted 24pc in just a week, shedding some £350m off its valuation.

The latest setback, Credit Suisse’s downgrade from “neutral” to “underperform”, sent it sliding a further 14.9p yesterday to 186.1p.

While analyst Daniel Hobden sees long-term benefits from improved governance following Bob Mackenzie’s departure last week following a hotel bar bust-up, a solution for margin pressures created by the erratic nature of roadside call-outs, which account for 79pc of the AA’S revenues, is unlikely to arise soon, he told clients.

Squeezed UK consumers, exemplified yesterday by the decline in discretionary spending in the British Retail Consortium’s latest high street data, are less likely to fork out for the AA’S membership, Mr Hobden argued. Elsewhere, record US job openings nearly helped the FTSE 100 sneak to a record close as bluechip exporters rallied on a second wind mid-afternoon, caused by the dollar’s advances on the pound.

With little news flow to support sterling, it retreated back below $1.30 against the greenback to levels not seen since mid-july, prompting a broad-based rally on the benchmark index.

After flirting with an all-time high, the FTSE 100 closed 10.79 points higher at 7,542.73, just short of the record finish of 7,547.63 reached in May.

Elsewhere, Chinese trade figures missing analyst estimates knocked mining heavyweight Rio Tinto 12p to £36.25, while precious metal miner Randgold

Resources reversed earlier gains to slip 50p to £71.80 as the dollar’s rebound pulled down gold prices. Paddy Power Betfair’s

disappointing interim results brought a second consecutive day of sharp falls for the bookie. Falling revenue blamed on punterfriendly sports results prompted it to slump a further 310p to £72.40, a 8.6pc drop in total this week, while investors also dumped Intercontinental Hotels Group after it missed analyst revenue predictions, with the hotel brand tumbling 176p to £42.35.

Finally on Aim, graphene producer Directa Plus soared 15p to 56p after Cantor Fitzgerald told clients that investors were “profoundly” undervaluing a “leading player” in the material, which is 200 times stronger than steel.