FTSE 100 movers: Whitbread downgrade sends market in the red

The London markets continued to slide on the back of yesterday’s ECB announcement as well as news from OPEC and the US jobs report.

Household Goods & Home Construction

11,324.30

15:45 15/11/24

-0.77%

-87.44

Whitbread

2,905.00p

15:45 15/11/24

-1.22%

-36.00p

The market was down 33.84 points (0.54%) to 6,241.16 by mid-afternoon Friday.

Premier Inn and Costa Coffee owner Whitbread was one of the bigger fallers after Barclays downgraded the stock to ‘equalweight’ from ‘overweight’ and cut the price target to 5,200p from 5,800p. The bank pointed to slower UK revenue per available room (RevPAR) growth, deteriorating leading indicators and reduced corporate capex expectations from its economists. It said that while Whitbread remains a high-quality, long-term growth story with a compelling total shareholder return, its positive view had in part been predicated on its belief that RevPAR growth could beat consensus given the various data points it tracks. However, Barclays now reckons these indicators may be delivering the opposite message.

Inmarsat also sat in the red after Citigroup downgraded the stock back to ‘neutral’ from ‘buy’ but retained its £11.50 target price. It said the company has performed strongly, outperforming the telecoms sector by 19% over the last six months and 37% over the last 12 months. “We see considerable long term, untapped potential in Aviation but note that commercial availability is still some way off for the European Aviation network,” it noted. “We see potential for upside to near term capex depending on the company’s launch plans, during a period that previously had been expected to be the investment lull part of the cycle.”

However it wasn’t all bad news to end the week, with Berkeley Group Holdings leading the blue-chip market. The property group's interim pre-tax profits fell to £293.3m from £304.9m after sales of its ground rent portfolio fell to £51m of profit from £85.1. The firm also said it was increasing its cash return to shareholders. However adjusted interim pre-tax profits rose 10.2% to £242.3m, with net asset value per share up 7.5% to 1,289p. The group said it is well-placed to meet its targets for the next three years and to meet its enhanced longer term commitment to return a further £12 per share to shareholders by 2021, “given in particular the visibility afforded to it by its land bank and cash due on forward sales, and to provide a successful and sustainable business thereafter". It also said it remained on target to deliver pre-tax profits in the region of £2bn over the next three years.

Investors were also buoyed with easyJet’s 9.6% increase in passengers for the November despite the situation in Sharm el-Sheikh and heavy fog at the beginning of the month. The low-cost airline released its passenger statistics for the month and said it carried 4.8m passengers in the month, up from 4.4m in November 2014. Of all available seats, 90.3% were filled in the month, up from 89.5% last year. Over the last 12 months, the airline has carried 69.6m passengers – a 6.8% rise from the previous year.

FTSE 100 - Risers

Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 3,632.00p 8.35%
Sage Group (SGE) 607.00p 4.39%
easyJet (EZJ) 1,652.00p 1.35%
Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 198.20p 1.07%
Barratt Developments (BDEV) 611.50p 0.99%
G4S (GFS) 234.40p 0.90%
Kingfisher (KGF) 352.90p 0.60%
BG Group (BG.) 1,038.50p 0.44%
Aberdeen Asset Management (ADN) 302.40p 0.40%
Aviva (AV.) 506.00p 0.40%