Spreadex Market Update
Bumper morning for UK earnings boosts FTSE as China and commodities quieten down
Barclays posted an impressive £3.14 billion in pre-tax profits for the first half of the year, a 25% rise from this point in 2014. It couldn’t avoid, however, setting aside another £850 million for the continual swirl of scandals surrounding the banking sector. Investors were on board with the results, sending the stock over 2% higher in the process.
Sky had a similarly stellar morning, reporting £1.96 billion in net profit for its fiscal year, more than doubling last year’s figure in the process. Perhaps just as importantly, it added another 973,000 subscribers in that period, a 45% increase on the previous year’s growth. It caps an impressive period for Sky as the company continues to duke it out with BT (which reports on Thursday) for quad-play UK media dominance. The stock couldn’t maintain the intraday all-time high it hit soon after trading began, but is still up nearly 2% on the day.
Investors also liked what Greggs served up this morning, with the high-street bakery surging over 5% after the bell as it raised its full year guidance following a 51% jump in first half profits. It was a different story for the much-demonised Foxtons, however, with the property company seeing a 2.3% fall in first half revenue alongside a 10.9% fall in property sales. Much of this was attributed to pre-election jitters, and the company’s confidence going forward more than mitigated its losses; in fact, after dipping its toe in the red the company soon surged by over 7.5%. With GlaxoSmithKline still to come, the FTSE benefited from this bumper earnings boost and is slowly recovering after a tough start to the week.
The DAX and CAC were looking just as spritely this morning, with the big cheeses from the EC, ECB and ESM (whose joining of the troika is causing many to throw around quadriga as a replacement term) all arriving in Greece at some point today, with representatives from the IMF on their way tomorrow. News that the results of the ‘technical talks’ are pointing to a deep recession for Greece in 2015 may be no surprise after the capital control suffocation of the past few months, but still once again acts as a stark reminder of the challenges that lie ahead.
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