FTSE 100 movers: Just Eat tanks but EasyJet flies higher on results
By Michele Maatouk
Date: Friday 17 May 2019
(Sharecast News) - London's FTSE 100 was down 0.2% at 7,338.71 in afternoon trade on Friday as investors mulled the collapse of cross-party Brexit talks.
Just Eat was the worst performer on the top-flight index after it emerged that Amazon will make a big investment in rival Deliveroo. No exact figures were given, but Deliveroo said Amazon will be the largest investor in its $575m funding round.
Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: "Given its financial firepower it is little wonder that Amazon effectively parking its tanks on Just Eat's lawn is spooking investors. The marketplace was already getting increasingly competitive with Uber Eats another firm chasing consumers' appetite for takeaway food.
Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the slump in the share price means Just Eat could get knocked out of the FTSE 100 in the next reshuffle.
Hikma Pharmaceuticals retreated even after saying that it made a good start to 2019, with healthy demand across its businesses.
Going the other way, EasyJet was the top riser after the budget airline left its 2019 profit expectations unchanged but warned of tougher trading conditions as it said losses before tax widened to £272m in the first half from £68m the year before.
IG market analyst Joshua Mahony said: "With TUI and Thomas Cook posting substantial losses of late, we have seen expectations of a profit warning drive EasyJet lower before today's earnings.
"Ultimately, with the company seeing a 13% rise in passengers and profits expected to remain in line with prior expectations, this is a case of a company outperforming a very low bar set by the market. With the airline taking steps to avoid the impact of future strikes and airports better prepared for other drone incident, traders are growing confident that these recent losses are a one-off rather than a new norm."
TUI was up, meanwhile, recovering from heavy losses earlier in the week after it reported a widening of its first-half losses, pointing to weak demand in the airlines segment.
Rio Tinto gained as Liberum upgraded the stock to 'buy' from 'sell' and lifted the price target to 5,500p from 3,300p. The broker said it forecasts 2019 EBITDA of $28bn, 40% above Bloomberg consensus.
FTSE 100 - Risers
easyJet (EZJ) 1,019.50p 4.78%
TUI AG Reg Shs (DI) (TUI) 818.20p 2.40%
Bunzl (BNZL) 2,105.53p 2.21%
Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,841.00p 1.83%
Rio Tinto (RIO) 4,679.00p 1.52%
Micro Focus International (MCRO) 1,901.40p 1.41%
Compass Group (CPG) 1,792.00p 1.01%
Coca-Cola HBC AG (CDI) (CCH) 2,868.00p 0.91%
Severn Trent (SVT) 1,921.00p 0.81%
Paddy Power Betfair (PPB) 5,858.00p 0.62%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
Just Eat (JE.) 613.60p -9.47%
Hikma Pharmaceuticals (HIK) 1,728.50p -3.11%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 675.00p -2.57%
Melrose Industries (MRO) 176.35p -2.57%
Scottish Mortgage Inv Trust (SMT) 518.34p -2.48%
SSE (SSE) 1,037.50p -2.40%
Smith (DS) (SMDS) 324.10p -2.20%
Evraz (EVR) 569.00p -2.17%
NMC Health (NMC) 2,498.00p -2.15%
Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 227.20p -2.03%
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