£4bn wiped from Tesco value

Supermarket retailer Tesco has seen more than 4 billion disappear from its share price after issuing a profit warning and revealing that UK sales fell by 2.3 per cent over Christmas.

Chief executive Philip Clarke said: "In a challenging economic environment, we made good progress internationally but despite record sales, we are disappointed with our seasonal trading performance in the UK."

He admitted that the company had made some missteps in the important holiday period, and regretted not competing more with coupons.

PCR has the full story.