Ashtead rocketing towards full-year results, Wolseley heats up in first quarter

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The FTSE 100 is expected to open 17 points lower on Tuesday, after closing up 0.24% at 6,746.83 on Monday.

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As growth at both of Ashtead's UK and US divisions has been humming along as fast as could be expected and after the pound's collapse, the plant hire group said it now expects full year results will exceed its original targets. Rental revenue in the six months to 31 October grew 13% on last year to £1.45bn, pre-tax profit by 9% to £425.9m and the interim dividend was hoisted 19% to 4.75p per share.

Wolseley, a distributor of plumbing and heating products, reported a rise in first quarter revenue, including increased revenue from the US, but markets in the UK and the Nordic region were “challenging”. During the quarter ended 31 October, the company generated revenue of £4.36bn, 5.2% ahead of last year at constant exchange rates and 1.8% higher on a like-for-like basis, including 1.3% price deflation.

Low-cost carrier easyJet posted its passenger statistics for November on Tuesday, with total passengers for the month improving 2.9% to 4,947,060 year-on-year, although load factor dropped 0.6 percentage points to 89.7%. The FTSE 100 airline carried a total of 73,720,867 passengers in the rolling 12 months to the end of November, a 5.9% improvement, though load factor also dropped over the same period, by 0.5 percentage points to 91.3%.

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The City of London will not get any special treatment in the upcoming Brexit negotiations, senior members of Theresa May’s Cabinet have told a group of high-profile banking and insurance chiefs. Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, and David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, told a group of City leaders that, despite accounting for 11.8pc of gross domestic product (GDP), financial and professional services is only one industry and cannot be seen to be treated differently. - Daily Telegraph

Warning that the UK was suffering its “first lost decade since the 1860s”, the governor of the Bank of England said that one of the reasons for the Brexit vote was a sense among people that they had lost control of their futures. Mark Carney also used his first big speech since Donald Trump swept to power in the US to warn that open markets are under threat and that politicians must do more to share out the gains of global trade and the rise of technology. - Guardian

According to the latest data from the British Retail Consortium and KPMG, comparable retail sales were up by 0.6 per cent in November, an improvement on the same time last year, when like-for-like sales fell by 0.4 per cent. On a total basis, sales rose 1.3 per cent last month against a 0.7 per cent increase last November. - The Times

Britain’s financial services industry paid the Treasury £71.4bn in taxes in the most recent financial year, beating its pre-credit crunch level for the first time. Tax payments dived in the recession as banks and other finance firms made huge losses, then took years to recover to their previous size. - Telegraph

US close

US equity markets were on the front foot on Monday, largely shrugging off the ‘no’ vote from the Italian referendum on constitutional reform and the resignation of its Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.24% to 19,216.24 points, the S&P 500 increased 0.58% to 2,204.71 points, and the Nasdaq 100 gained 0.82% to 4,778.14 points at the close.

Meanwhile the main European indices were mostly higher, but Italy’s FTSE MIB swung low by 0.21% amid worries about the impact of political instability on the country’s banks.

Philippe Waechter, chief economist at Natixis AM, said: “The markets’ reaction was not extreme. The euro fell below the 1.06 mark against the dollar, while the equity markets in Asia saw only on a moderate drop, with Tokyo closing down 0.8%. Yields on Italian bonds rose, wiping out the drop seen at the end of the week.

In currency markets, the dollar was trading up against the euro, which steadied after falling to a 20-month low against the greenback in Asian trading on the referendum result.

In commodity markets, oil prices slipped after advancing earlier in the session.

Brent crude was down 0.5% to $54.19 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediate lost 1.29% to $51.02.