Market Report: N Brown issues its second profit warning in less than six months

N Brown is fast going out of fashion in the City.

The catalogue retailer, which specialises in plus-sized clothes, tumbled 69.7p to 338.9p yesterday, with its second profit warning in less than six months, blaming an unseasonably warm autumn for flat full-year sales. The figures also revealed an erosion of margins, and N+1 Singer said: “Lower sales and margins impact 2016 forecasts too, and we estimate a 5 per cent consensus downgrade and higher net debt.”

After its worst fall so far this year in the previous session, the FTSE100 could only manage a mild revival, rising 18.67 points to 6,721.51.

Burberry, up 34p at 1,850p, and Aggreko, 57p better at 1,572p, did well.

Domino’s Pizza jumped 43p to 775p, as Barclays said it is now in a “sweet spot”, even though some attributed it to name confusion with bid target Domino Printing. Food deflation means lower costs and more to spend on marketing.

Cairn Energy collapsed 28.4p to 155p after being hit with a stellar $1.5bn tax bill in India – more than the Scottish company is worth. Cairn spun-out its Indian operation in 2007, but retains a 10 per cent stake, but Indian authorities have been investigating the business after a retrospective tax law was passed in 2012. Indian authorities believe they deserve a bigger slice of the pie than they were given. Cairn said it plans to appeal the decision.

Online gaming group Bwin climbed as much as 3 per cent in early trade after it confirmed it was still in talks with various suitors about a potential takeover. But the online poker operator ended the day up just 0.3p at 78.7p as investors digested the company’s full-year figures, which revealed a loss of €97.9m (£70m) from a €51.9m profit a year earlier.

Ormonde Mining leapt 1.05p to 3.4p on AIM after Canada’s Almonty Industries made a surprise offer for the Spanish-focused metal miner.

Water processing specialist Modern Water dropped 2.87p to 17.75p on AIM as full-year losses jumped to £17.7m from £4.7m, due to a restructure of the business and a slump in demand from China.