Updates from TUI Travel, Domino's Pizza and Ted Baker

More pressure on the FTSE 100 yesterday, down 65.2 points to 6,557.5. Almost a 1% fall. Supermarkets, yet again, took the largest hits with Sainsbury's plunging almost 7% to 234p following a dismal quarterly update; Morrisons lost almost 5%, to 159.90p, while Tesco shares dipped 3.22% to 180.20p. Royal Mail was the only significant climber, up 1.91% to 399.70p.

Across the water the Dow Jones took a 1.40% fall to 16,804.7 as investors responded to a rash of negative news, not helped by grim economic numbers from Germany.

First this morning, TUI Travel. In a pre-close update the travel player claims underlying operating profit growth of 9% on a constant currency basis, versus previous guidance of 7% to 10%. That's partly down to strong high-season Summer 2014 trading with higher average selling prices generally.

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TUI claims strong trading in Germany since the end of the World Cup with package holidays up by 22% (overall bookings up 9%) and margins ahead of last year; there's also an encouraging start to Summer 2015 with UK bookings up 11%.

"Sales of unique holidays," says the company, "are up 12% compared with this time last year, accounting for 84% of holidays sold to date, broadly in line with the prior year. To date 16% of the [2015] programme has been sold."

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Next, interim numbers from Ted Baker. For the 28 weeks to 9 August group revenues climb 17.4% to £182.2m for the fashion player while pre-tax profits climb 33.8% to £15.6m. Basis earnings per share are up almost 30% to 26.1p.

Retail sales including e-commerce climb 14.8% to £140.0m on a 9.9% increase in average square footage. UK and European retail sales up 15.1% to £105.4m while Asian retail sales push 16.0% higher to £5.8m.

"Whilst our results for the full year will be dependent," says the company, "on the more weighted second half, we continue to look forward with confidence as we further develop Ted Baker as a leading global lifestyle brand."

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Lastly, an interim from Domino's Pizza for the 13-week period to 28 September. Sales heat up 17.6% in the UK to £165.7m, achieved by better economic conditions, meal deal promotions and e-commerce sales.

Almost 71% of delivered sales were placed on-line (2013: 62.4%) with almost 50% of these orders from mobile devices. Return on investment has had its best quarter of the year so far claims Domino's though progress in Germany is slower than the company would like.

"Our performance in Switzerland is encouraging. We face more challenging comparatives for the final quarter, but we remain confident of a satisfactory outcome for the year."

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