UFO Info Week-End

This combined with competitive pressures led to a 15 per cent drop in

This, combined with competitive pressures, led to a 15 per cent drop in T&B’s grocery volumes.On the upside, the US business and Axial, the motor arm, is performing strongly. Clothes distribution is fine, but food retailers are becoming fastidious in their grocery orders, shrinking them to match expected demand perfectly. However, the group’s working capital outflow – a legacy of the Ford contract – was higher than expected. The group also said the UK operations, 46 per cent of sales, were having a rough ride.

Even so, the shares are struggling to climb further from their pre-crash levels.
Yesterday’s interim results marked a break in T&B’s recent history with the absence of significant bad news. The return to favour comes in the wake of T&B’s escape from a loss-making contract with Ford, and the market’s excitement about the potential of e-commerce for logistics companies. SHARES IN Tibbett & Britten, which trucks groceries and clothes for the likes of Asda, have enjoyed a full recovery following their de-rating last year amidst a spate of disappointing trading news. However, there was a more intriguing reason for the fall from grace of some of the second liners.

At the end of last month, a raft of FTSE 250 stocks were added to the much-criticised order book, allowing brokers to trade them electronically. However, mid cap stocks are generally more illiquid than blue chips and putting them on the automated trading system has only succeeded in increasing the volatility in their prices.This flaw was all too evident yesterday when the falls in two new entrants were exacerbated by the automated trading.The packaging group Rexam slumped 24p to 269p after announcing the resignation of director Bob Hamilton. In itself, the news should not have caused such a fall and should have warranted some of the daft spreads seen in the stock. However, brokers said that they were forced to slash the price because it was impossible to sell the shares on the order book.

Similar story for paper group Arjo Wiggins, 18.5p lower to 196.75p and courier group NFC, 17p lower to 208p after Deutsche Bank downgraded.Two stocks from out-of-favour sectors were also hit. Homebuilder Wimpey topped the list of midcap fallers with a 14p slide to 120p after lukewarm interims and a pounds 4m write-off due to accounting irregularities. Engineer Morgan Crucible plummeted 17.5p to 262.5p on the fall-out from recent poor figures. Rival BBA closed 15.5p lower at 451.5p after a series of roguish trade way below Tuesday’s closing price.The dairy producer Unigate plummeted 24p to a near five-year low of 341p on continued rumours that it has lost its contract to supply milk to Tesco.