RETAILERS enjoyed a shares rally as investors cheered recovery efforts at Morrisons and Argos owner Home Retail Group.
Supermarkets were among the biggest gainers after Morrisons announced a deal for Ocado to help it with the rollout of its internet operation.
With a profits upgrade at Home Retail Group also spurring on blue chips, the wider FTSE-100 index regained ground lost yesterday to return above the 6500 barrier – rising 47.91 points, or 0.7%, to 6529.41.
Sterling was enjoying a sustained recovery, having slumped to a near-three year low against the US dollar earlier this week. The pound rose to 1.51 dollars and 1.16 euros.
Morrisons was one of the top flight's biggest risers, up 2%, or 4.6p, to 276.2p, as its Ocado deal fuelled the company's comeback hopes after it reported a 7% drop in profits to £879 million following a disappointing year for
Elsewhere in the top flight, Tesco was 10.4p higher at 386p and Marks & Spencer improved 12.6p to 371.6p.
Insurers were also doing well, with Prudential enjoying a second strong session in a row after yesterday's results showing a 25% leap in annual earnings buoyed its shares. It was up 30p to 1155p, a rise of 3%.
Outside the top flight, Home Retail Group surged 12%, or 16p, to 148.9p after it said full-year profits will be around £90m, compared with the City's consensus forecast of £84m.
This was after a further improvement in trading at Argos as like-for-like sales rose by a better-than-expected 5.2% in the eight weeks to March 2.
The tie-up with Morrisons meant Ocado's shares topped the FTSE-250 index risers' board as analysts speculated it could lead to a full tie-up between the firms. The shares were up 24%, or 32.6p, to 170p as Ocado also said it had maintained its recent trading momentum, with sales up 14.4% to £185.5m in the 12 weeks to February 24.
Trinity Mirror shares plunged as police arrested four current or former journalists at Mirror Group Newspapers, while annual results revealed a fall in full-year profits. The stock was 24.75p lower at 95.5p, off 21%.
However, cash-and-carry firm Booker rose 9p to 125p, after the Competition Commission provisionally cleared the company's takeover of Makro UK.
The top Footsie risers were Aggreko, up 126p to 1965p, BT, up 11.6p to 277.4p, and CRH, up 52p to 1540p.
The biggest fallers were Carnival, off 55p to 2430p, Rio Tinto, off 66p to 3311p, Evraz, down 4.7p at 246.3p, and Fresnillo, off 27p at 1457p.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article