Apple Q1 earnings fall more than expected, no FTSE 350 news of note

London pre-open

The FTSE 100 was called to open unchanged at 7,820.

Stocks to watch

There was no FTSE 350 news of note out on Friday morning.

First-quarter earnings at Apple have fallen by more than expected, as supply chain disruptions weighed heavily.

Revenues were also forecast to fall again in the second quarter.

Newspaper round-up

Netflix has mistakenly launched a set of guidelines for cracking down on password sharing to global users. The streaming service said the guidelines being trialled in Chile, Peru and Costa Rica had been posted accidentally across its help centre pages including in the US on Wednesday, but had since been taken down. – Guardian

The Bank of England has sounded the alarm over a worsening crisis in the rental market as high taxes and red tape forces landlords to sell up. In its Monetary Policy Report published on Thursday, the Bank said demand for rental properties has continued to outstrip supply as “the number of landlords choosing to exit the market increased”. – Telegraph

Amazon has fallen to its worst ever annual loss and Apple’s iPhone sales slumped over Christmas, fuelling fears of a painful correction in the tech sector. The online retail giant posted record festive revenues, but fell to a $2.7bn annual loss, its worst since it went public in 1997 and its first full-year loss since 2014. The online retailer posted revenues of $149.2bn, up 8.6pc, in the three months ending in December, buoyed by its internet services division. – Telegraph

The lack of a national strategy to secure supply chains for semiconductors is “an act of national self-harm”, the chairman of the Commons’ business select committee has warned. Darren Jones said the government had to act swiftly to keep up with the United States, the European Union and Japan, each of which is putting tens of billions of dollars into fostering homegrown supplies of the critical electronic components. – The Times

The chief executive of NatWest has bowed to pressure from MPs and will appear before the Treasury select committee to answer questions on savings rates, having initially refused to attend. Dame Alison Rose will attend with executives from Lloyds, Barclays and HSBC after she had turned down an invitation to explain why banks had been slow to pass on the Bank of England’s recent base rate rises to savers. – The Times

US close

Wall Street stocks turned in a mixed performance on Thursday as digested a slew of corporate earnings and some key data points.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.11% at 34,053.94, while the S&P 500 advanced 1.47% to 4,179.76 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 3.25% firmer at 12,200.82.