Balfour Beatty wins share of LAX transport project, SEGRO unveils strong 2017 results
London open
The FTSE 100 is expected to open 34 points higher on Friday, having closed up 0.29% at 7,234.81 on Thursday.
Stocks to watch
Balfour Beatty has won a share of a huge contract to design and build an 'automated people mover' at Los Angeles International airport. The LINXS joint venture, in which Balfour has a 30% stake, was awarded the $1.95bn (£1.4bn) contract to construct the above-ground transport system connecting the LAX central terminal area to a new rental car facility as well as six stations and a vehicle maintenance building.
Rio Tinto said on Friday it had been told by Mongolia to find a domestic power source for the $5.3bn expansion the Oyu Tolgoi mine by 2022. The Rio subsidiary that owns 66% per cent of Oyu Tolgoi, Turquoise Hill Resources, said it and Rio were "continuing to evaluate all viable power options including construction of an Oyu Tolgoi based power plant" and was setting aside $250m a year “for the development of a power station in Mongolia in its 2019 and 2020 capex forecasts".
SEGRO took the wraps off what it described as another strong set of financial, operating and portfolio performance metrics for the 2017 year on Friday, with a record level of development completions during the period, almost all of which have been leased. The FTSE 100 company said adjusted pre-tax profit was up 25.7% to £194.2m, which the board put down to its focus on customer and portfolio management, delivering high customer retention rates, like-for-like rental growth and a low vacancy rate. It also said the result reflected investment during the year, primarily the acquisition of the Airport Property Partnership portfolio and a record level of development capital expenditure.
Newspaper round-up
One of the City’s most influential shareholder advisory groups has told investors in Booker Group to vote against a proposed £3.7 billion sale of the cash-and-carry business to Tesco. With just two weeks before a shareholder vote on the takeover, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) said that the recent uplift in Booker’s share price meant that Tesco “appears to be getting the better deal under the current terms”. - The Times
More than 423,000 new homes in Britain have been granted planning permission but are still waiting to be built – despite the country suffering a chronic housing shortage. Councils are approving nine in every 10 planning applications, but sites are being left empty as developers fail to build quickly enough, and councils are unable to step in. - Telegraph
A major business group has put forward a bespoke Brexit solution which it believes will protect manufacturers from customs chaos but also allow the UK to strike independent trade deals. The Institute of Directors, a trade body with a membership of 30,000 business leaders, has proposed a customs arrangement that would allow for easy trade in industrial products and some processed foods. - Telegraph
Britain could raise new taxes on Amazon, Facebook and Apple to give every citizen under the age of 55 as much as £10,000 in a form of universal basic income (UBI), according to a study, helping to counter the growing risk of job losses from automation and artificial intelligence. The Royal Society of Arts is proposing that the government develop fresh taxes on tech firms, introduce wealth taxes, or borrow money from the financial markets to create a Norwegian-style sovereign wealth fund to pay for UBI. - Guardian
Donald Trump is a strong supporter of a national tax on internet sales, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said, throwing significant weight behind calls to overhaul legislation on the issue. Speaking to the House Ways and Means Committee, Mr Mnuchin said the US president “does feel strongly” about introducing an online sales tax. - Telegraph
The Government’s infrastructure tsar has slammed its bungling of the Crossrail 2 project and warned that Britain’s “historic weakness” in strategic infrastructure planning risks scuppering its post-Brexit growth. The first report from the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) branded progress on South East England’s mega rail project “hugely disappointing” and also heaped criticism on the pace of progress for the Northern Powerhouse Rail and Heathrow expansion projects. - Telegraph
US close
US stocks finished higher on Thursday after some unsteadiness earlier in the session, as investors eyed higher-than-expected inflation print from a day earlier and mixed jobs and producer prices data.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 1.23% at 25,200.37, the S&P 500 added 1.21% to 2,731.20, and the Nasdaq 100 charged ahead 1.8% to 6,794.92.
Wednesday's inflation data was still on traders' minds, as the consumer price index for January showed a 2.1% gain - above economists' expectations for a fall to 1.9%.
On Thursday, the US producer price index accelerated to 0.4% in January from -0.1% the prior month according to the Labour Department, thanks to strong gains seen in the cost of gasoline and health care, hinting that inflation pressures were building up after staying flat throughout December.
“Those hawkish numbers appear to have been enough to temper investors’ early enthusiasm, undermining the market’s recently displayed resilience,” noted Connor Campbell, financial analyst at SpreadEx.
In other data, initial US jobless claims increased by 7,000 to 230,000 for the week ended 10 February, with the monthly average of claims rising 3,500 to 228,500, after touching a 45-year low last week.