Sainsbury’s and Morrisons expected to report poor Christmas trading

The share prices of Sainsbsury’s and Morrisons have fallen amidst predictions that the pair will report disappointing Christmas trading results later this month.

The Grocer reports that analysts are expecting a 2.8 per cent drop in like-for-like sales over the period for Morrisons and a dramatic slowdown of growth at Sainsbury’s from 2.1 per cent growth in 2011 to just 0.9 per cent this hear.

Sainsbury’s shares price fell 14.5 per cent on the news yesterday with Morrisons suffering a 4.3p dip.

We expect Morrisons to kick off the January trading season in a weak manner,” Jeffries analyst James Griznic stated. We expect hard discounters to have experienced a disproportionate improvement in market share over Christmas, particularly in the north of England.

Secondly, more affluent consumers’ migration to online shopping seems to have accelerated over the festive season.”