Morrisons share price dips as grocer’s sales miss expectations

Shares in Wm Morrison (LON:MRW) have fallen into the red in today’s session, with the grocer’s latest sales numbers falling short of estimates. The update comes hot on the heels of the supermarket’s move to slash the prices of nearly thousand products amid the ongoing grocery war which has seen Aldi and LIdl pressure the UK’s ‘Big Four’ supermarkets.

As of 08:54 GMT, Morrisons’ share price had given up 2.28 percent to 214.65p. The shares are underperforming the broader UK market, with the benchmark FTSE 100 index having climbed 0.57 percent higher to 6,849.90 points.

Morrisons updates on sales

Morrisons announced in a statement this morning that its like-for-like sales excluding fuel were up 3.6 percent for the nine weeks to January 6, including contributions from retail of 0.6 percent and wholesale of three percent. Reuters noted in its coverage of the news that the result compared with analysts’ average forecast for growth of 4.1 percent and growth in the previous quarter of 5.6 percent.

The blue-chip retailer noted that there “was a change in consumer behaviour during the period,” while pointing out that it had been ‘more competitive’ over Christmas.

Outlook unchanged

Morrisons, however, left its outlook for the full year unchanged, while chief executive David Potts reassured investors that the company was “well set to keep improving the shopping trip and become more and more relevant for more customers”.

Reuters noted that prior to today’s statement, analysts were on average forecasting a 2018-19 pretax profit of £409 million, up from £374 million in the 2017-18 financial year.

Morrisons’ update marks the start of this weeks’ reports from blue-chip retailers, with Sainsbury’s (LON:SBRY) to follow tomorrow, while Tesco (LON:TSCO) and Marks & Spencer (LON:MKS) are reporting on Thursday.

As of 09:13 GMT, Tuesday, 08 January, Wm. Morrison Supermarkets plc share price is 210.60p.