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Why The British Land Company plc, TalkTalk Telecom Group PLC And Renishaw plc Should Lag The FTSE 100 Today

The British Land Company plc (LON: BLND), TalkTalk Telecom Group PLC (LON: TALK) and Renishaw plc (LON: RSW) all slide.

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The FTSE 100 (FTSEINDICES: ^FTSE) is gaining further today, up 46 points to 6,643 approaching midday, with a number of upbeat earnings reports giving it a boost — ARM Holdings, easyJet and Kingfisher are all among the top-tier companies with strong updates today. Second-quarter GDP figures are also expected to be cheery, supporting the start of an economic recovery in the UK.

But not everyone is having such a good time. Here are three companies from the various FTSE indices whose shares are trailing today:

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British Land

A quarterly update from real estate investment trust British Land Company appears to have disappointed the punters, with the share price subsequently dipping by 5p (0.8%) to 612p. The fall comes despite the firm’s quarterly dividend being upped by 2.3% to 6.75p per share, which would take the full-year payment to 27p, for a 4.4% yield.

British Land also told us it has invested £512m in new acquisitions since the start of the year, with £470m of that going for a stake in Paddington Central. So why the price fall? Maybe because the retail market was said to be “still challenging“.

TalkTalk

Shares in TalkTalk Telecom (LSE: TALK) slipped back 5.9p (2.3%) to 246p after the telecoms firm released a first-quarter update — which actually looked good.

Total revenue rose by 1.7% over the same quarter last year, to £421m, with the company enjoying 24,000 on-net additions, 160,000 new TV customers, 27,000 new mobile customers and 22,000 new fibre customers.

Chief executive Dido Harding told us that “Customers are spending more and staying with us longer because of our strong value-for-money deals“.

Renishaw

Renishaw, the developer of metrology and inspection equipment, saw its share price slip 27p (1.7%) to 1,540p in morning trading, despite full-year results showing record revenue of £347m. Adjusted pre-tax profit, however, fell 5% to £81.5m, with adjusted earnings per share down 4% to 91.4p. At least the dividend got a boost, of 4% to 40p per share, for a yield of 2.6%.

There was, however, a note of caution in the firm’s outlook, saying “The Group faces tough comparators going into the first half of this financial year, however, we look forward with confidence to a successful 2014“.

Finally, reliable dividends can more than compensate for the day-to-day ups and downs of share prices. So how about a company that’s offering a 5% yield and which could be set for some nice share price appreciation too?

It’s the subject of our BRAND-NEW report, “The Motley Fool’s Top Income Share For 2013“, which you can get completely free of charge — but it will only be available for a limited period, so click here to get your copy today.

> Alan does not own any shares mentioned in this article. The Motley Fool has recommended shares in Renishaw.

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