LONDON -- The FTSE 100 (UKX) is up 53 points (0.9%) to 5,856 at the time of writing, reversing its trend for the week. In fact, the index of top U.K. stocks is up 1.8% from the week's low point yesterday of 5,755 points.
But even if the index is having a good day, there are plenty of individual companies that are not. Here are three whose share prices are falling today:
Dixons
Dixons Retail (LSE: DXNS) fell back a bit today, dropping 2.1% to 25.5 pence on the release of interim results. The high street stalwart reported an "encouraging" first half, with like-for-like sales up 3%. Total underlying sales were up 4% to 3.29 billion pounds. Key to Dixons' recovery is the news that multi-channel sales were up 29% overall, and up 38% at Currys and PC World, suggesting the group's response to the shift in shopping away from high-street stores is paying off. Dixons is also "on track to reduce costs by 90 million pounds over two years."
Dixons' share price, though down a little today, has more than doubled over the past 12 months, so it's been a pretty good recovery so far.
Monitise
Monitise (MONI +0.00%) shares dropped 6% to 31.5 pence this morning after the mobile payments specialist confirmed press speculation that it is planning a new fundraising. The company, it appears, is in discussions with institutional and strategic investors with the aim of raising up to 100 million pounds.
The firm told us that the new money will be used to "fund new Mobile Money opportunities for financial institutions and payments companies," and that there are significant new possibilities out there.
RPC Group
Interim figures from RPC Group (RPC +0.00%) led to a 37 pence (8.7%) drop in the share price to 389 pence. The plastic packaging supplier suffered from restructuring costs and impairment losses during the period, leading to a 37% fall in pre-tax profit to 22 million pounds. There will be an interim dividend payment of 4.3 pence per share, up from 4.2 pence at the same stage last year.
Today's price fall will be seen as something of a setback for investors, as the shares were previously up more than 25% on the year.
Finally, how does Britain's ace investor Neil Woodford avoid share price falls? He goes for a strategy of buying solid blue-chip shares paying dependable long-term dividends. And in doing so, he's built a record of beating the FTSE for nine straight years.
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