The FTSE 100 (FTSEINDICES: ^FTSE) is down 70 to 6,618 points so far this afternoon, with a number of shares going ex-dividend potentially accounting for up to a third of the slide. Larger concerns about slowing growth in China, the world’s second largest economy, are the main cause for today’s sell-off.
These are some of the top fallers:
Ocado
Among the leading fallers on the FTSE All-Share today is online grocer Ocado (LSE: OCDO) after the publication of its first-quarter results. While sales were strong, increasing by 18% to £219m, the shares fell 7% on fears of slowing growth. At the time of writing Ocado’s share price is 536p.
Ocado’s share price has rocketed 358% in the last two years and, obviously, it had to slow down at some point. Shares were bolstered particularly by its deal to deliver food for Morrisons, but the firm is more than a delivery company, with its own technology division and even a robotics team.
As yet, however, Ocado hasn’t licensed its technology to anyone, and investors’ hopes are pinned on it providing technology to other retailers.
Ocado has never made a profit, but analysts are forecasting pretax profit of around £18m in 2014, and after today’s sales numbers that seems a realistic target.
Standard Chartered
Standard Chartered (LSE: STAN) (NASDAQUTH: SCBFF.US) was one of a number of shares that went ex dividend today, meaning that investors from this point onwards won’t qualify for the latest payout of 39p per share. The shares fell 3.5% by roughly the same amount as the dividend.
Last week marked an end of a decade long run of increasing growth for the bank after profits fell to £7bn from £7.5bn a year earlier. That said, the news didn’t break investors’ spirits, as the bank improved its capital strength and hiked the dividend.
Based on today’s share price of 1,209p shares in Standard Chartered may trade on a forward price/earnings ratio of 9.
The shares are trading at a 33% discount to this time last year amid investors reducing their exposure to emerging markets. Predominantly, this fear is based on the possibility of a slowdown in China.
Antofagasta
Weak trade data from China left the copper market on shaky ground, and weighed heavily on mining stocks this week. Shares in Antofagasta (LSE: ANTO) fell by 7p to 833p today, making that a total slide of almost 5% since Monday.
It was only earlier this month that Antofagasta reported its best year ever for copper production, producing 721,000 tonnes in 2013 compared with 710,000 tonnes last year.
