Rare boost for British high street fashion stores on rapid vaccine roll-out

Shares in the big retail names on Britain's high street got an unexpected and rare boost as the UK gained traction in rolling out its vaccines ahead of the rest of Europe. 

Big-name fashion retailers such as Next and Ted Baker posted large gains, while sterling also rose.

"On the vaccination-front, the UK is ramping up their process to such a degree that close to 1% of the population was inoculated on Saturday alone," said Joshua Mahony, senior market analyst at IG. 

That has lifted hopes that Britain could be among the first to lift its restrictions in the coming months as it quickly vaccinates large parts of the population and boosting industries and hospitality that have been among the hardest hit.                  

Retail has also suffered disproportionately in Britain and Ireland with the shutdowns accelerating the speed of shoppers turning online.

Shares in Next, which has performed relatively strongly during the crisis, rose by 2.5% and has now posted gains of around 15% from a year ago.

Shares in long-troubled Ted Baker climbed 6% to peg its stock losses to 41% in the year.  However, Marks & Spencer shares fell slightly.                   

Sterling also gained as the UK took a lead with its vaccine programme. Against the euro, it was trading at 88.49 pence.  

Mr Mahony said that the Ftse-100 was having a "buoyant start to the week", driven by the vaccine news but also the surge in mining shares. 

Silver has been rising as part of the US retail buying stampede that last week saw huge gains in minnow companies.

"UK coronavirus deaths and hospitalisations have finally started to turn the corner, following on from a dramatic decline in cases over the past week," the IG analyst said.

Worries that the more contagious Covid strain were making lockdown measures less effective are being allayed by this latest development, although it is clear that these measures are likely to remain in place until vaccinations reach a critical mass. 

Meanwhile, Britain's online Asos confirmed it will buy parts of the troubled Arcadia empire, picking up Topshop and Miss Selfridge a number of other brands for £295m (€332.8m). 

However, the online retailer won't be reopening the brick-and-mortar stores. 

Rival online fashion retailer Boohoo said last week it was in exclusive talks with the administrators to buy most other parts of the collapsed Acadia, including Wallis, Dorothy Perkins, and Burton.

Boohoo had also bought the shuttered Debenhams to sell its brands online.    

However, it too will not reopen its brick-and-mortar stores.

“In another bleak day for retail workers, the deal unsurprisingly does not include any of the Arcadia brands’ stores, and Topshop, in particular, will certainly be missed from high streets across the UK," said Chloe Collins, senior analyst at GlobalData.