Shares in the fashion and home furnishings retailer got a modest bounce this morning after the company issued interim results. Sentiment has been buoyed by strong demand for full price sales, especially in the last six weeks, which has resulted in management upgrading forecasts for the full year. Revenues are now tipped to come in at £995m, which would be 8.4% up on the comparative. The Next share price had traded as much as 6% higher shortly after the bell, but gave back around half of those gains by 9am.
A stellar performance for online grocery retailer and infrastructure play Ocado this morning after the company published a trading update. Full year revenue guidance has been increased with new customer growth being the key driver. Basket sizes were unchanged from a year ago but they are winning the battle for new users of the service. The Ocado share price traded as much as 14% higher shortly after the bell before easing back to sit 7% higher at 9am.
Interim results from the advertising and marketing group S4 were also released, headlining with a 15% drop in revenues and a notable drop in the adjusted operating profit from just over 30% to a shade under 25%. Cost control is being applied in a bid to meet full year profit targets although the note concedes that the trading backdrop is worse than had been assumed in the May 2024 update. Just over an hour into the day and the S4 share price is down by 11%.
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