FTSE 100 movers: EasyJet flies higher on Credit Suisse note; SSE slips
London's FTSE 100 was down 0.4% to 7,198.98 in afternoon trade on Monday.
EasyJet was the standout gainer as Credit Suisse lifted its price target on the outperform-rated budget airline to 1,836p from 1,803p and upped its pre-tax profit estimate for 2018 by 7% to £603m pre-Tegel start-up costs of £60m. The bank said this was driven by increased confidence in second-quarter pricing and growing comfort with the summer capacity outlook at key EZJ airports. CS also nudged up its 2019 pre-tax profit forecast by 2% to £643m.
Going the other way, SSE was the worst performer as it emerged that the Competition and Markets Authority, which was already investigating the merger of Npower and SSE, said it would now also look into the ramifications of the E.ON-RWE deal.
BT Group was under pressure after it published its pre-full year results consensus on Friday. Compared to last quarter's consensus, 2017/18 and 2018/19 revenues were down 1% while EBITDA was down 0.2% and 0.4% lower, respectively.
Just Eat was under the cosh as Deutsche Bank cut the stock to 'sell' from 'hold' and slashed the price target to 630p from 830p. It said the investment plan to expand into the delivery services business announced in the 2017 results and aimed at defending the company's position against increased competition will come at the expense of profitability.
"We thought it was likely the new CEO was going to announce an expansion into delivery and as a result we downgraded to hold, from buy, in November 2017. But the scale of investment and the urgency to face competition were much greater than we expected - as a result we downgrade to sell."
GKN was in the red as turnaround specialist Melrose Industries upped its offer for the engineer to 467p per share, or £8.1bn, from £7.4bn. The sweetened offer came after GKN announced on Friday that it had agreed to combine its automotive business, Driveline, with US-based Dana in a deal valued at around $6.1bn.
Corrugated packaging company Smurfit Kappa, which recently rejected a bid from International Paper, was on the back foot as UBS downgraded the stock to 'neutral'.
Risers
easyJet (EZJ) 1,597.50p 2.21%
Evraz (EVR) 446.20p 2.11%
Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 246.00p 1.23%
Pearson (PSON) 760.60p 1.22%
Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) 280.90p 1.15%
Rentokil Initial (RTO) 275.18p 1.02%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 786.80p 1.01%
SEGRO (SGRO) 604.60p 0.93%
Schroders (SDR) 3,435.00p 0.91%
Glencore (GLEN) 372.85p 0.82%
Fallers
SSE (SSE) 1,232.00p -1.99%
BT Group (BT.A) 235.61p -1.58%
Just Eat (JE.) 776.00p -1.57%
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 913.10p -1.37%
Reckitt Benckiser Group (RB.) 5,731.00p -1.36%
NMC Health (NMC) 3,472.00p -1.20%
Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 5,962.00p -1.19%
Smurfit Kappa Group (SKG) 3,182.00p -1.18%
GKN (GKN) 430.20p -1.13%
Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 186.25p -0.98%