London’s FTSE 100 was down 1.2% at 7,300.59 in afternoon trade on Wednesday.
Ocado tumbled for the second day in a row after the online supermarket warned on Tuesday of an expected fall in annual sales as customers start to tighten their belts amid the cost-of-living crisis.
Abrdn fell after a downgrade to ‘sell’ from ‘hold’ at Deutsche Bank, which cut its price target on the shares to 135p from 175p, as it argued that accelerating stake sales won’t offset wider headwinds.
The bank said it was taking a more cautious stance on several fronts. “We have been cautious on Abrdn’s earnings for a while, as evidenced by our sell catalyst call in June,” it said.
“Since then, we’ve reflected further on the numbers and see further downside risk to the shares form both an earnings and capital perspective. On the latter, we now push through a 25% cut to the DPS beginning with the 2022 final.
“Additionally, we also value the excess capital locked within the Indian stakes at a larger 5% discount to reflect concerns around the uses of sale proceeds.”
Elsewhere, Auto Trader was in the red after a downgrade to ‘equalweight’ at Morgan Stanley.
FTSE 100 – Risers
Harbour Energy (HBR) 497.60p 1.34%
Haleon (HLN) 268.95p 0.88%
Pershing Square Holdings Ltd NPV (PSH) 2,790.00p 0.72%
Shell (SHEL) 2,340.50p 0.56%
BP (BP.) 463.70p 0.47%
Scottish Mortgage Inv Trust (SMT) 806.00p -0.17%
Admiral Group (ADM) 2,222.00p -0.36%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 608.60p -0.59%
Aveva Group (AVV) 3,029.00p -0.69%
NATWEST GROUP (NWG) 267.80p -0.70%
FTSE 100 – Fallers
Ocado Group (OCDO) 619.60p -8.78%
Melrose Industries (MRO) 115.00p -5.43%
Abrdn (ABDN) 142.05p -4.79%
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 74.58p -4.71%
Auto Trader Group (AUTO) 615.80p -4.23%
Schroders (SDR) 2,544.00p -4.14%
DCC (CDI) (DCC) 4,863.00p -4.01%
Smurfit Kappa Group (CDI) (SKG) 2,856.00p -3.81%
RS Group (RS1) 1,051.00p -3.75%
Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 3,504.00p -3.68%
