Barclays downgrades Next, says shares up with events

Barclays downgraded Next on Thursday to ‘equalweight’ from ‘overweight’ but lifted the price target to 8,500p from 8,250p, as it said the valuation is now reasonable.

"Although we still very much like the long-term story at Next, we feel that the share price is 'up with events' after a strong run," it said.

Barclays noted the shares are up 26% since the end of October last year, versus the FTSE 100 up 5%.

At 0945 GMT, the shares were down 2.2% at 8,278p.