Sainsbury's, the British supermarket brand which is 25.9 percent owned by Qatar, raised its profit forecast and posted better-than-expected quarterly sales on Wednesday, sending its shares soaring on hopes the worst may be over for the battered sector. Sainsbury's, which has shown greater resilience to competition from discounters Aldi and Lidl than its "big four" British rivals, said underlying sales fell in the second quarter to the end of September, but not by as much as feared. The supermarket said that meant it was on course to beat the average analyst forecast of 548 million pounds ($831 million) for 2015-16 underlying pretax profit, sending its shares up 14.7 percent, the biggest intraday rise since February 2007. After two years of sector downgrades, the upbeat readout also boosted the shares of rivals Tesco and Morrisons by up to 5.4 percent and 6.8 percent respectively. Asda, the other big four supermarket, is owned by Wal-Mart. One of Sainsbury's major institutional shareholders welcomed the "very solid" update. "No fireworks, just running a tight ship in a tough, but stabilizing, environment," he said. Sainsbury's sales at stores open more than a year fell 1.1 percent, excluding fuel, in the 16 weeks to September 26. That was a seventh quarterly decline in a row thanks to fierce competition with rivals that has contributed to lower prices.