Retailers’ poor results drag down FTSE100

SHARES in London fell again yesterday as the FTSE 100 fell behind its counterparts in Europe and the US.

A poor performance from the oil and gas sector and some retailers, especially Burberry, whose results were out yesterday, helped pull down the index.

The FTSE 100 fell 75.94 points, or 1.01% to end the day at 7410.97.

B&Q owner Kingfisher, Ocado and B&M all saw their shares join the losers close to the bottom of the index. Shell and BP also suffered after oil prices fell 4.1% to 77.82 dollars per barrel.

Chris Beauchamp, an analyst at trading platform

IG, said that shares of some companies have fallen because they went “ex-dividend”.

This refers to the date after which investors will no longer be entitled to the dividend if they buy the company’s shares.

He said: “Much of the exuberance seen earlier in the week for stocks has faded, with weakness in retailers and a swathe of ex-dividend names hitting the FTSE 100”.

“The bounce in stocks has slowed dramatically, though the reasons to buy keep coming through.

“First it was CPI, then retail sales and PPI, and now comes a fresh fall in oil prices and yields, the two chief bugbears of stocks in recent months. Jobless claims rose to their highest level since mid-august, another sign of a cooling in the US economy, and a further brick in the wall of expectations that the Fed is now on pause for the foreseeable future.”

At the end of the day in Europe Frankfurt’s Dax index rose 0.24%, while the Cac 40 in Paris had closed down 0.57%.

In New York, a little while after markets had closed in Europe, the S&P 500 was trading down 0.22%, while the Dow Jones was 0.45% lower

On currency markets, the pound was trading barely lower against the dollar at 1.2417 and had risen by a tiny amount against the euro at 1.1445.

In company news, Burberry’s shares plummeted to the bottom of the FTSE after it said that there had been a slowdown in the demand for luxury goods around the world. Shares ended the day down 9.8% after the retailer said it might not meet its profit guidance.

Elsewhere, shares in Hotel Chocolat soared 161% after the business said it had agreed to be taken over by chocolate giant Mars.

The £534 million deal lets the US giant take over the luxury chocolate brand which has 130 shops across the UK.

The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were Halma, up 62.5p to 2,028p, National Grid, up 20.8p to 1,010p, Endeavour Mining, up 27p to 1,711p, Centrica, up 1.7p to 149.3p, and SSE, up 20p to 1,771p. The biggest fallers were Burberry, down 194.5p to 1,550p, Ocado, down

36.8p to 559.4p, Hargreaves Lansdown, down 44p to

710p, DS Smith, down 12.6p to 286.4p, and Smurfit

Kappa, down 112p to 2,746p.