Here are three developing stories you need to know about at the UK stock market open, from Tony Cross.

1. Ocado: bumper Christmas season for UK’s fastest growing grocer

A trading update from Ocado LON:OCDO has shown strong performance through 2024, accelerating into the last quarter and that the company remains the fastest growing grocer in the UK. Revenues for the 13 weeks to December 1st were up by 17.5% with the number of active customers coming in at 1.12 million. The momentum here continued through to Christmas as well with a record breaking trading season being noted, with guidance being for high mid-single digit adjusted EBITDA margin in the mid term. FY25 guidance will be in next month’s FY24 results.

2. Smiths upgrades FY25 guidance again

Smiths Group LON:SMIN has this morning upgraded FY25 guidance, advising the market that full year organic revenue growth is now expected to be between 6% and 8%, up from the previous forecast of 5% to 7%, numbers which had already been bumped higher. This reflects broad-based performance across the business, with particular strength versus expectations in Smiths Detection and Smiths Interconnect during Q2 FY2025, and improved visibility for the full-year order book.

3. Margins maintained but profits downgraded at JD Sports

A pre-close trading update from JD Sports LON:JD. is out, covering the nine weeks to 4th January. Despite broad based economic headwinds, the company reported organic revenue increases of 3.4%, with management noting that they didn’t get drawn into heavy discounting in order to maintain margin performance. Full year pre-tax profits are expected to be between £915m and £935m, that’s down from the £955-£1035m range cited back in November.