As we digested another packed week of earnings, some interesting trends for two key UK 100 sectors began to emerge. The constituents of the blue chip UK 100 index have always been influenced by politics and economics; it would be worrying if they weren’t! But after this particularly busy week, we’ve seen both Housebuilders and Pharmaceuticals…
Reckitt Benckiser (RB) makes it a brace of companies whose share prices have defied traditional M&A reaction recently, rising on news of spending big to acquire. While prey will almost always rise thanks to a premium being offered to cede control, for the predator to jump is not so normal. To do so implies acquisition…
Tonight sees the first 2017 meeting of the US Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, at 7pm. Last time around, the Open Market Committee (FOMC) agreed to hike rates for only the second time since the 2008 financial crisis. Now, with Donald Trump sitting in the Oval Office as the 45th President of the US, might…
A fortnight into his tenure President Trump, unsurprisingly, has remained a divisive figure both in the US and abroad. However, if there’s one thing that you can’t fault Trump for, it is his unshaking commitment to stick to his campaign trail pledges: Ending US support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP); beginning the process of building a…
Online grocer Ocado (OCDO) is the UK Index outperformer this morning, its shares +7.1% after full-year results added to recently robust reports from UK grocers that helped their own shares prices rise. Today’s report from OCDO management indicates 52-week sales +13.6% and revenues +14.8% with customers +14% and volumes +18%. These ate strong top-line numbers…
Macro observations After the ECB kicked things off a fortnight ago, this week sees a trifecta of monetary policy updates from the world’s largest economies in a busy week for central bankers, still trying to process the potential economic impact of the new leader of the world’s largest economy as they meet for the first time…