DEB leads retailers with nearly 22 percent gain

The majority of European equities markets were lower Thursday.

In London, the FTSE 100 was 0.31 percent lower to 4,018.23 although the FTSE 250 managed to gain 0.3 percent to 7,181.53 on the session.

The retail sector saw gains after Debenhams (LSE: DEB) led the 250 and the sector with a gain of 21.65 percent after it reported that both its pre-tax profits and sales were better than expected in its fiscal first half, while over on the 100 clothing retailer Next (LSE: NXT) added 6.55 percent.

Miners were mixed as Lonmin led the 100 as it gained 9.52 percent and iron ore miner Ferrexpo (LSE: FXPO) led all miners with an advance of 10 percent, but Eurasian Natural Resources (LSE: ENRC) dropped 6.3 percent.

Assets managers Schroders (LSE: SDR) turned in the worst performance of the session on the 100 as it fell 6.92 percent, with its non-voting shares (LSE: SDRt) right behind with a decline of 6.32 percent.

Over on the 250, gaming operator Rank Group (LSE: RNK) fell the most as it dropped 8.78 percent.

The FTSE Eurofirst 300 was down 0.47 percent to 791.49 while the CAC-40 fell 0.55 percent to 3,008.62, the IBEX was 0.73 percent lower to 8,769.2 and the Dax dropped 1.22 percent to 4,538.21.

The banking sector saw declines as Credit Agricole (Euronext: ACA) fell 2 percent, BNP Paribas (Euronext: BNP; TYO: 8665) was down 2.89 percent and Commerzbank (FWB: CBK) dropped 4.72 percent.

Utilities were lower as RWE (FWB: RWE) had the worst day on the Dax as it dropped 9.01 percent, while over on the CAC-40 GDF Suez (Euronext: GSZ, GSZB) fell 1.46 percent.

Hotels operator Accor (Euronext: AC) led the CAC-40’s gains as it added 6.29 percent while the worst performance of the day in the index came from Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext: ALU; NYSE: ALU; TYO: 6687) which dropped 4.48 percent.

Most markets in the Asia-Pacific region were higher, although Taiwan’s Taiex was 0.18 percent lower to 5,875.24 on the session.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 was up 1.37 percent to 8,847.01 while the Topix index added 1.15 percent to 839.5 and the Mothers market gained 5.27 percent to 338.8.

Pioneer (TYO: 6773) led the electronics sector higher as it added 23.3 percent after it was reported that Honda Motor (TYO: 7267; NYSE: HMC) will put a large amount of cash into the company.

Honda added 1.7 percent while Toyota Motor (TYO: 7203; NYSE: TM; LSE: TYT) gained 3.5 percent on an upgrade to “buy” and an increase in target share price from Goldman Sachs.

Banks and traders were down on the session.

Elsewhere in the region, the Shanghai Composite added 0.11 percent to 2,463.95 while the Straits Times Index was up 0.9 percent to 1,859.98, and the Kopsi was 0.94 percent higher to 1,368.8.

In Australia, the Sydney Ordinaries gained 1.89 percent to 3,695.8 and the S&P/ASX200 was up 2.04 percent to 3,743, while the Hang Seng was 2.26 percent higher to 15,214.46 in Hong Kong and India’s Sensex added 2.93 percent to 11,134.99.

New York equities markets were lower on bad news, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 0.31 percent to 7,862.36 in early afternoon trade while the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.49 percent to 1,638.04 and the S&P 500 had dropped 0.3 percent to 841.

The declines came as the Labor Department reported that there were 640,000 new jobless claims filed last week, 5,000 more than had been anticipated.

Additionally, the National Association of Realtors said that existing home sales were down 3 percent in March in the United States.

At just before 1 p.m. in New York, American Express (NYSE: AXP) was the best performer on the Dow 30 as it added 3.81 percent, while the biggest loser on the index was carmaker General Motors (NYSE: GM) which had dropped 5.33 percent.

Story link: DEB leads retailers with nearly 22 percent gain