JD Sports struggles with Red Sea disruption and wet weather

Sarah Butler

The biggest share price drop on the FTSE 100 this morning is trainer and clothing retailer JD Sports. It is down by 3.6% on Wednesday morning.

UK business has been hit by falling sales after disruption in the Red Sea stalled deliveries and the cold wet spring reduced demand for camping kit and clothing.

The retail group, which owns Millets and Blacks in the UK, said sales at the outdoor kit chain were down 5.3% in the six months to 3 August as “key product lines” had been delayed by Houthi attacks off Yemen delaying or rerouting shipping and the early date of Easter fell outside the camping season for the first time since 2018.

It said poor weather compounded the issue, reducing demand for seasonal outdoor living product such as tents and camping equipment.

The chilly wet weather also hit the group’s main JD sportswear chain in the UK where sales at established stores were down 4.6% in what the group described as a “challenging and often volatile UK market”.

JD said discounting in the market had surged after “unfavourable spring and early summer weather conditions, dampened footfall and full price demand for seasonal [clothing]”.

Oil prices have bumped up further as European traders switch on – both Brent and West Texas Intermediate are up by more than 2% now.

That has helped oil companies. BP and Shell are among the top gainers on London’s FTSE 100 index, thanks to higher oil prices. They rose by 2% and 1.9% respectively.

TotalEnergies, France’s oil supermajor, rose by 2.1%, while Italy’s Eni gained 1.3%.

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Oil prices rose on Wednesday morning as investors around the world weighed the risk of threats to energy supplies after Iran’s missile attack on Israel threatened to escalate the Middle East conflict.

The price of Brent crude oil futures, the North Sea benchmark, rose by 1.6% to $74.75, while the price of futures for its North American counterpart, West Texas Intermediate, rose by 1.7% to $70.98.

Prices surged on Tuesday as reports of Iran’s imminent attack emerged. The attack was a response to Israel’s killing last week of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon’s powerful militant group, Hezbollah. Hezbollah is widely seen as an Iranian proxy, and Israeli troops have moved into Lebanon.

Brent crude prices rose by 3.8%, after the largest intra-day move since April 2023, according to analysts led by Jim Reid at Deutsche Bank. They wrote:

There were some indications that escalation risks might be higher this time around. The Pentagon said that this attack used around twice as many ballistic missiles as the one in April, while Iranian commentary was more ambiguous on whether the attack would be one-off.

Most Asian stock markets outside China slumped on Wednesday morning, following the lead of US indices the night before. Japan’s Nikkei slumped by 2.2%, South Korea’s Kospi fell by 0.6%, and Australia’s ASX 200 index fell by 0.1%.

However, Hong Kong’s stock market soared by 6% amid Beijing’s stimulus, which has pushed up Chinese stocks. The mainland Chinese stock markets were closed for the Golden Week holiday.

Investors are now considering whether Israel will respond directly to Iran, while Israeli forces continued to strike Beirut, Lebanon’s capital. Israel has also been fighting in Gaza, to its west, for almost a year after the attacks by Hamas on 7 October.

Mohit Kumar, chief economist for Europe at Jefferies, an investment bank, said:

Risk off dominated the markets on escalation in the Middle East. Oil moved higher on geopolitical risks. Markets did stabilise after the initial risk off and investors now wait for the response from Israel.

The agenda

• 10am BST: Eurozone unemployment rate (August; previous: 6.4%; consensus: 6.4%)

• 1:15pm BST: US ADP employment change (September; prev.: 99,000; cons.: 120,000)