Mildly pessimistic noises from the Bank of England sent the FTSE 100 (FTSEINDICES: ^FTSE) down 57 points by just after midday, to 6,547. Although interest rates are to be held low, new chief Mark Carney said that any recovery in the UK economy is not yet at “escape velocity“. The Bank wants to see unemployment down to around 7% before it considers raising interest rates, but said that could take three years.
Which companies are feeling the pinch today? Here are three from the various indices that are falling:
TUI Travel
TUI Travel has had a great 12 months, with its shares having nearly doubled in value to 380p. A third-quarter update today caused a slight stumble, with the price dipping 20p (5%) to 381p. But the figures are ahead of expectations and look good.
Underlying operating profit was up 18% to £87m, with the company telling us that “unique holiday bookings in the UK, Nordics and Germany increased by 14%, 11% and 9% year-on-year respectively for Summer 2013“. We also heard of an “encouraging start to Winter 2013/14 trading“.
Randgold Resources
A miserable year for Randgold Resources shareholders continued today, with the shares falling a further 121p (2.7%) to 4,307p — they’re now down 30% over the past 12 months. The falling gold price is the main culprit, as the gold miner reported a 62% fall in profits from the previous quarter to $54.1m, with basic earnings per share down 34% to 50 cents.
And that gold price? The firm received an average price of $1,363 per ounce, down from $1,638 in the quarter ended 31 March and $1,606 in the same quarter last year.
SABMiller
After a strong run up to May, SABMiller (LSE: SAB) shares have been on a downer, losing about 15% of their value since their peak of 3,668p — and that includes a 51p (1.6%) fall to 3,155p today. The international brewer has a strong record of beating the FTSE for 12 straight years, but that run could be at risk this year with the price slightly lagging so far.
Today’s news was of a new $1.1bn bond issue, in a combination of $750m in 5-year fixed-rate notes and $350m in floating-rate notes. The purpose is to repay bank loans taken out for the acquisition of Foster’s Group in December 2011.
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> Alan does not own any shares mentioned in this article.