FTSE 100 movers: Property stocks gain; RS Group retreats
London’s FTSE 100 was down 0.1% at 7,763.02 in afternoon trade on Tuesday.
RS Group - formerly Electrocomponents - was under the cosh after full-year results, as it said trading over the first seven weeks of 2023/24 reflected "a slowing" in industrial growth, and pointed to continued weakness and aggressive competition in electronics.
Rolls-Royce was also down following a report it is abandoning part of its carbon capture operation as part of a streamlining of the engineering group under its new boss.
According to Sky News, the company decided to abandon work on creating a direct air capture (DAC) product last month, and has redeployed the handful of people working on the project to other roles.
However, insiders told Sky that Rolls-Royce would continue to work on a government-funded research project focused on DAC.
Retailers were also in the red. CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said we’re seeing selling pressure in broader retail, after the latest Kantar survey showed that food price inflation rose by 17.2% in May, only down modestly lower from 17.3% in April.
"This could be bad news for general retail as it means less disposable income for summer spend in the short term, with weakness in the likes of Frasers Group, JD Sports, Next and B&M European Retail," he said.
On the upside, property stocks British Land and Land Securities were among the top performers on the index.
FTSE 100 - Risers
British American Tobacco (BATS) 2,740.50p 2.31%
British Land Company (BLND) 364.60p 2.30%
Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 834.80p 2.20%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 666.60p 2.05%
Kingfisher (KGF) 246.00p 1.82%
Vodafone Group (VOD) 83.10p 1.78%
Land Securities Group (LAND) 641.80p 1.65%
Smurfit Kappa Group (CDI) (SKG) 3,042.00p 1.60%
Mondi (MNDI) 1,310.50p 1.59%
Barclays (BARC) 162.62p 1.59%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
RS Group (RS1) 803.20p -5.82%
B&M European Value Retail S.A. (DI) (BME) 464.80p -5.14%
Frasers Group (FRAS) 720.00p -3.81%
Burberry Group (BRBY) 2,265.00p -2.83%
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 153.85p -2.19%
BAE Systems (BA.) 966.60p -2.17%
Halma (HLMA) 2,412.00p -1.75%
JD Sports Fashion (JD.) 157.80p -1.62%
Prudential (PRU) 1,165.00p -1.52%
Next (NXT) 6,548.00p -1.39%