Investors showed they were not tired of Halfords (LON:HFD) as shares rose today after the company announced annual sales of more than £1bn for the first time.
The UK car repair and bicycle retailer also saw pre-tax profit rise more than 11% as it rode a hike in popularity for cycling.
Its cycling business grew the most, with sales up 11.4%, with overall retail sales climbing 7% on a like-for-like basis.
Dennis Millard, chairman of Halfords said: “We are delighted to have exceeded £1bn of Group Revenue, a year ahead of plan, and are building a sustainable platform for future growth.”
Shares in Halfords were 4.5p higher to 489p today on the news.
London’s blue chip stocks were lower again today ahead of the markets opening on Wall Street.
In Europe, Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras deferred the country’s payment to the International Monetary Fund, saying he would make a bulk payment at the end of the month.
It gives the under-pressure government breathing room and time to find a creditor, something it has struggled to do so far.
It looks as though Russia is willing to step up as Vladamir Putin and Tsipras held a phone meeting earlier today to discuss a possible backing.
The news had an adverse effect on European bourses, with Paris’ CAC 40 easing 1.5% to 4,909 and the Frankfurt-based DAX lost 1.4% to 11,184.
In America, all eyes will be on the non-farm payroll figures due out at 1.30pm UK time, with investors likely to be speculating on what the data means for a Federal Reserve Interest rate hike.
In the UK, the FTSE 100 was 1% off at lunch to 6,791 with high street bellwether Marks & Spencer (LON:MKS) leading the way lower.
It emerged that chief executive Mark Boland is to earn a £600,000 as part of a bonus roll-out across the company after it hit profit expectations. Shares slipped 2.6% to 563p.
Also near the bottom were supermarkets after Deutsche Bank lowered its price targets on Tesco (LON:TSCO) and Morrisons (LON:MRW).
“We’ve seen no improvement in UK grocery market growth since the tentative rebound experienced December and January faded,” said Deutsche Bank’s Niamh McSherry in a note this morning.
Morrisons’ shares eased 2% to 174p while Tesco was 1.5p lower at 207p.
In small caps, Southeast Asia-based cloud service provider RapidCloud (LON:RCI) announced it has raised £1.74m by way of a subscription for 3,231,138 new ordinary shares. Shares rose 019% to 47.5p making it the day’s biggest riser.
Conversely, shares in Sovereign Mines of Africa (LON:SMA) almost halved after the release of full-year results that have taken almost six months to compile.
The company has written down the value of its flagship Mandiana gold project in Guinea by £3.7mln, resulting in a loss for the year of £3.88mln. Shares eased 48% to 0.25p making it the biggest faller of the day.