By Patrick Munnelly, Market Analyst, Tickmill
The FTSE 100 saw a second successive session in the red, down 26 points to finish the day at 7751.08.
FTSE 100 biggest movers
The index was driven by a dismal earnings forecasts from Vodafone LON:VOD, trading down by as much as 8% before staging a meagre bounce into the close, but still in the red by over 7%.
Vodafone’s newly appointed CEO, Margherita Della Valle, has announced plans to streamline the telecoms group by cutting 11,000 jobs over a span of three years. Della Valle emphasised the need for change within the company. The forecast for the upcoming financial year indicates minimal to no growth in earnings. The company highlighted underperformance in Germany, its largest market, as a contributing factor. Coupled with increased energy costs, this has led to an expected decline of 1.3% in group core earnings to 14.7 billion euros for the fiscal year ending in March. The forecast aligns with market expectations.
Ocado LON:OCDO were once again in hot pursuit of the bottom spot in the index as the shares shed a further 3.9%+.
On the positive side of the ledger DCC LON:DCC (+2.8%+) announced encouraging results for its financial year 2023, indicating continued progress for the company. The Dublin-based sales, marketing, and support services firm reported revenue of GBP22.21 billion for the year ending on March 31. This represents a significant increase of 25% compared to the previous year’s revenue of GBP17.73 billion, surpassing the expected revenue of GBP21.24 billion.
Land Securities LON:LAND is sitting in second spot on the session, trading over 2%. The UK’s largest commercial realtor reported soft results, with a loss before tax of £622 million but increased its total dividend per share by 4.3% to 38.6p. Amidst the current economic and financial landscape, the company anticipates that global uncertainty will persist at heightened levels in the near future. However the firm did confirm an uptick in commercial letting which led investors to see an offset opportunity.
Podcast: Everything you need to know about the FTSE 100 Index
Subscribe to our podcast on your favourite platform
Don’t miss out on our weekly podcast. You can find us on Spotify, Soundcloud, Amazon, Apple, YouTube and many other popular platforms