Retailers slip as analysts advise investors to swap bricks for clicks

EMBATTLED high street retailers endured another bout of selling after City analysts urged investors to switch from bricks to clicks.

The double whammy of inflation-squeezed shoppers tightening their belts and Britain embracing the Amazonification of retail has hit the high street hard, with a growing number of well-known retailers collapsing under the strain of sinking sales.

Citigroup analysts advised clients to dump UK stores in favour of their healthier European peers and sink their funds into brand names rather than struggling retailers.

The pressure from online growth is “mounting” as e-tailers snap up market share at an accelerating pace, it argued.

Next pulled back 49p to £47.71 after being put on Citi’s “sell” list, while Marks

& Spencer, which was also put under pressure by a bearish note from Goldman Sachs, weakened 5p to 269p on a downgrade to “neutral”.

Elsewhere, independent car dealer Motorpoint surged 22p to 239p after it defied the gloomy car market by tapping sales of “nearly new” vehicles.

A day after the new car market recorded its 12th consecutive month of decline, Motorpoint told investors that its full-year pre-tax profit would hit the upper end of expectations with revenue set to climb 18pc. Numis analyst Andrew Wade told clients that the figures were impressive given they were up against tough comparatives in the second half of the year and “cautious used car industry indicators”.

New short disclosures revealed that the UK’S

biggest sandwich maker,

Greencore, has been targeted by hedge funds looking to profit from its troubled attempt to expand across the Atlantic.

Greencore became the most shorted stock in London this week following a spike in bets against the FTSE 250 firm in the wake of last month’s disastrous profit warning. Greencore shares out on loan to short-sellers have surged from just under 10pc to 15pc in the three weeks since the update, with the stake held by hedge funds betting against the company now worth over £140m. Johnson Matthey

extended its share price climb, up 58p to £32.09, despite analysts pouring cold water on speculation mooting a break-up of the chemicals specialist.

Interbroker dealer NEX dipped 11p to 993p after BNP Paribas analysts predicted that the probability of a counterbid to CME’S £3.9bn offer was low.

The FTSE 100 survived the latest escalation in trade tensions relatively unscathed, dipping just 15.86 points to 7,183.64, but the Dow Jones in New York plunged to close 2.3pc lower as European markets ended another rollercoaster week of trading on the slide.

Markets were rocked by the US president threatening to impose a further $100bn (£71bn) of tariffs on China. Government officials in Beijing vowed to retaliate if the Trump administration published another tariff hit list with investors pulling money out of riskier equities amid the heightened tensions.

On currency markets, the

pound flirted with the $1.41 mark against the dollar after a monthly US jobs report failed to meet economists’ lofty expectations.

After a bumper February, only 103,000 jobs were added to the US economy last month, a 210,000-job pull back.