FTSE 100 movers: Housebuilders rally; Admiral under the cosh

London’s FTSE 100 was down 0.4% at 7,655.06 in afternoon trade on Wednesday.

Berkeley and Barratt Developments rose as FTSE 250 peer Persimmon beat guidance on new home completions in 2023 after a decent fourth quarter, and said it had entered 2024 in a strong position with private forward sales ahead of last year.

New home completions totalled 9,922 last year, down 33% on 2022 on the back of challenging market conditions with the whole industry being impacted heavily by rising mortgage rates. However, that was ahead of the 9,500 target given in November.

Intertek also gained as RBC Capital Markets upgraded the shares to ‘outperform’ from ‘sector perform’ and lifted the price target to 4,700p from 3,900, making the stock its preferred pick in the testing, inspection and certification space.

Insurer Admiral was under the cosh amid concerns about a potential clampdown on premium financing.

Traders pointed to a report in the Insurance Post which quoted the head of insurance at the Financial Conduct Authority as saying that premium finance was a "poor product".

In an interview with the Insurance Post, Matt Brewis warned that the regulator has "talked about it enough", hinting at potential action surrounding the practice in the next 12 months.

Premium financing is a practice whereby customers borrow money needed to pay an insurance premium and pay interest on the loan.

Sainsbury’s fell despite holding full-year profit guidance and saying that strong volume growth had helped lift Christmas grocery sales by 8.6%.

CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson noted that there had been a fair degree of optimism over pre-Christmas trading numbers for the major supermarkets in the lead-up to the latest retail updates this week.

"In truth there may have been a little too much optimism with Sainsbury share price pushing up to its highest levels since August 2021 yesterday, while Tesco has also seen strong gains in the past few months its shares pushing up to 1-year highs last week," he said.

"All in all, today’s numbers are a solid performance however markets had been expecting a little bit more given recent declines in the cost of living and the big jump in UK retail sales seen in November."

FTSE 100 - Risers

Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 4,869.00p 1.73%
Intertek Group (ITRK) 4,249.00p 1.26%
Relx plc (REL) 3,150.00p 1.09%
BAE Systems (BA.) 1,159.00p 1.09%
Intermediate Capital Group (ICP) 1,597.00p 1.04%
Barratt Developments (BDEV) 550.40p 1.03%
Diageo (DGE) 2,792.00p 0.89%
Informa (INF) 785.80p 0.87%
Unite Group (UTG) 1,048.00p 0.87%
SEGRO (SGRO) 876.80p 0.85%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Admiral Group (ADM) 2,555.00p -6.14%
Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 289.50p -5.36%
Flutter Entertainment (CDI) (FLTR) 12,865.00p -3.38%
Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) 277.80p -2.97%
BT Group (BT.A) 118.10p -2.40%
Ocado Group (OCDO) 692.60p -2.18%
Mondi (MNDI) 1,474.00p -1.80%
NATWEST GROUP (NWG) 217.10p -1.72%
Beazley (BEZ) 519.00p -1.70%
Entain (ENT) 962.40p -1.39%