The bull run seen in the FTSE 100 of late shows little sign of coming to an end with the index posting yet another intra-day record high this morning. The depreciating pound is seemingly the main catalyst for this latest push to uncharted territory, with sterling falling once more in early trade.
Miners rise as Sterling falls
Anglo American (LON:AAL) is leading the way for the latest round of buying in London-listed stocks with the mining firm rising by more than 5% as it continues to build on last year’s impressive performance. Other firms in the sector are also in the green with Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) and BHP Billiton (LON:BLT) adding to recent gains and benefitting from the pound’s latest decline. The soft start to the week for banking shares has continued with RBS (LON:RBS) and Barclays (LON:BARC) lower by 2.1% and 1.1% respectively at the time of writing.
Supermarkets rise on Morrisons festive cheer
Shares in Morrisons, Tesco (LON:TSCO) and Sainsbury’s are all rising today after the former released strong sales numbers during the festive period and announced an upbeat forecast for its annual earnings. Morrisons reported its best performance over the Christmas period in seven years with like-for-like sales rising by 2.9% in the nine weeks to January 1st. The strong set of results support those made by Aldi yesterday in suggesting that supermarkets enjoyed a stellar festive period. As well as reporting better than expected figures Morrisons also revised higher its annual profit projection which is now forecast to come in at £330-340M - above the £326M consensus estimate amongst analysts.
After some testing times in previous years, 2016 was a good one for investors in Morrisons with the share price rising by more than 50%. This latest set of results will only serve to add to the growing level of optimism around this stock which is now clearly trending higher and seeking to get back close to its record highs around 300p.
Earnings for Topps Tiles slip
Investors have met the latest trading update from Topps Tiles with a mixed reaction after a sharp slowdown in sales growth for its fiscal first quarter. The stock is lower by around 1% in early trade and the recent woes for the FTSE 250 listed firm don’t seem to be over yet. The retailer warned back in October that trading conditions had started to soften and this has reduced investor expectations since then, hence why we have seen a rather muted reaction to the sales slowdown. Nevertheless, this first quarter trading statement should be viewed as yet another warning sign. Not only were like-for-like sales sharply lower than previous quarter - at 0.3% compared to 1.4% - but its first quarter also contained an additional trading day which the firm maintained would have had an additional benefit to like-for-like sales of around 0.6%. So in truth, sales growth of just 0.3% is actually worse than it stands on paper. The continued weakness of the pound and any further hits to UK consumer confidence would likely see a deterioration in Topps Tiles’s performance this year.