Centrica Gains After Profit Upgrade; Looks -2-

0929 GMT - Tesco shares drop 0.6% after the U.K. grocer reported strong Christmas sales, but stuck to full-year profit guidance. A large part of the U.K. grocer's success is due to discounting, which can spell bad news for margins, Hargreaves Lansdown says. "The tug of war between pricing and volumes is clearly producing a good result, which is why profit expectations have been reiterated, but it's still hardly an ideal state of affairs for the industry's big names," HL analyst Sophie Lund-Yates writes. "The major question now is how supermarket spending will hold up from here. It seems people spent big at Christmas, but this may well mean a pull-back in essential spending in the short to medium-term."([e-mail])

Contact: London NewsPlus; [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

01-12-23 0632ET