FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - A profit warning from British sports retailer JD Sports also spooked Adidas and Puma investors on Thursday. While the British company's shares slumped by a fifth on the London Stock Exchange, the shares of the two German sporting goods manufacturers fell by up to three percent. In addition, the US market was clearly negative, with the share price of its biggest competitor Nike falling by more than two percent.

JD Sports Fashion lowered its profit forecast for the financial year after a disappointing performance in the important Christmas business. The company blamed unusual weather and restrained consumer spending for the weak sales in the run-up to the holidays. It went on to say that margins for the year as a whole will probably be lower than in the previous year. This was due to special offers and promotions to attract shoppers during the Christmas period.

Zalando was probably also affected by this, with the online retailer's shares continuing their downward slide with a discount of 0.6 percent. They were thus unable to benefit from positive impulses from competitor Next. Its shares rose by more than four percent in London. The reason for this was a further increase in targets. Unlike JD Sports, Next spoke of flourishing Christmas business./tih/jha/