City investors dump hospitality stocks despite pubs welcoming customers back indoors
England’s pubs welcomed customers back inside for the first time in months today, but investors in Canada were less taken by the sector’s future.
Worries about a possible spread of the Indian variant of Covid-19 made shareholders sell their pub stocks.
Wetherspoon, Marston’s, City Pub Group and Fuller, Smith & Turner were all fairly deep in the red by the end of trading in London.
The impact was felt elsewhere across the companies that have been the worst impacted by the Covid-19 crisis, including hotels and travel companies.
By the end of the day, Whitbread, which owns Premier Inn; International Hotel Group; and Restaurant Group, the company behind Wagamama and Frankie & Benny’s, were also down.
They were joined by IAG, the owner of British Airways, and Rolls-Royce, which makes plane engines.
British Airways’ boss Sean Doyle said that official travel advice was unclear on Monday morning. Shares in his IAG dropped 3.7 per cent.
Ryanair avoided quite the same level of damage, closing down 2.8 per cent, after reporting its worst ever loss.
The travel and hospitality companies in the FTSE 100 were pulling against a boom in the mining sector. The index finally settled at 7,032.85. It was a 10.76 reduction on Friday’s closing, or a 0.2 per cent drop.
BT found itself as one of the best performers on the FTSE 100 after its boss bought an additional £2m stake in the company. Shares closed up 2.8 per cent.
GSK shares rose 0.7 per cent after it released positive results from the phase 2 trial of its Covid-19 vaccine.
Sterling was as good as flat against two major counterparts. At the end of the day, it bought 1.4123 dollars or 1.1625 euros.
Vistry shares fell 0.8 per cent despite the housebuilder saying it expects annual profits to beat expectations.
Hollywood Bowl shares dipped 1.9 per cent after its revenue dipped from £69m to £12m in the six months to the end of March.
Around the world
The subdued mood was reflected on other global markets. In New York, the S&P 500 and Dow Jones indexes were both trading down around 0.5 per cent when trading ended in London.
In Europe, the Dax fell 0.1 per cent while the Cac was down 0.3 per cent. After an afternoon a barrel of Brent crude oil cost 0.8 per cent more, at 69.24 dollars.
The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 today were Fresnillo, up 30.6p at 915.8p; Polymetal, up 47p at 1,646p; BT Group, up 4.5p at 166.2p; Rio Tinto, up 140p at 6,275p; and Sainsbury’s, up 5.5p at 264.5p.
The biggest fallers on the index were Rolls-Royce, down 4.66p at 102.98p; Antofagasta, down 76.5p at 1,702p; IAG, down 7.22p at 189.68p; Whitbread, down 95p at 3,085p; and Weir, down 54.5p.