BP falls short of targets while DCC comes in 'strongly' ahead
London open
The FTSE 100 is expected to open four points lower on Tuesday, after closing down 0.22% at 7,172.15 on Monday.
Stocks to watch
Fourth-quarter profits from BP fell short of target and the oil colossus said cash flow will not increase in 2017 as it hikes its level of disposals and capital expenditure to return the business to growth in the medium term. A fourth-quarter underlying replacement cost profit of $400m resulted in a full year profit of $2.6bn, a 56% drop from the previous year.
UK and North America passenger transport operator FirstGroup posted an update on its trading for its third quarter to the end of December 2016. The FTSE 250 firm said the trend of overall trading and expectations for the full year was unchanged, and that reported group revenue increased by 12.8% in the third quarter, benefiting from favourable currency translation. Group revenue in constant currency was flat, with growth in North America offset by previously announced rail franchise changes and First Bus trading
DCC’s third quarter profit was “strongly” ahead of the previous year and in line with expectations as the business support services firm agreed to buy Esso’s retail petrol station network in Norway as part of its plan to extend its presence in Europe. The FTSE 100 company bought Esso Norge, the third largest network in Norway with about 20% of retail volumes, for 2.43bn Norwegian kroner (about £235m) in order to build its retail petrol station business in Europe.
Newspaper round-up
Councils will be made to earmark land for tens of thousands of new homes in the latest effort to fix Britain’s “broken” housing market. Two fifths of local authorities in England have failed to plan for enough new homes, ministers will say today as they take on councillors, countryside campaigners and big housebuilders. - The Times
Theresa May has warned MPs not to obstruct the Brexit bill during its second phase of debate in the House of Commons, as Labour failed in its attempt to secure regular parliamentary scrutiny of the EU negotiations. The prime minister called on MPs not to use parliamentary procedures to delay the passage of the bill, which will be debated over the next three days. - Guardian
The UK could shake off the near-term impact of Brexit to become the fastest-growing economy in the G7 group of rich countries between now and 2050, according to a report that paints a bright outlook for the country’s prospects outside the EU. Consultants PwC say the UK economy will not escape entirely unscathed from the decision to leave the bloc and that it will dampen growth prospects in the short term. - Guardian
Rolls-Royce is facing a new multimillion-pound bribery and corruption investigation, barely a fortnight after it agreed to a £671 million out-of-court settlement with fraudbusters on three continents over corruption. The future of the engineer’s relationship with UK Export Finance is under review after it emerged that it had misled UKEF’s predecessor body, the Exports Credits Guarantee Department, to enable the receipt of state support for the financing on contracts worth more than £400 million to the company. - The Times
The London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Boerse have offered to sell the LSE’s French clearing operations in a bid to calm competition regulators’ concerns over the two exchanges merging. European competition authorities have to give their approval before the £21bn deal can pass, and so the companies have reportedly proposed this as an option to reduce their dominance over the sector. - Telegraph
US close
US equity markets were mostly down on Monday as investors exercised caution amid the uncertainty of President Donald Trump’s policies, while the dollar gained.
With no major economic data releases, market participants looked towards the White House for more indications of his economic policies and as a legal confrontation looms over his immigration ban.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.09% to 20,052.42, the S&P 500 ticked down 0.21% to 2,292.56 and the Nasdaq Composite shaved off 0.06% to 5,663.55.
Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda, said: "The new US President has been extremely active since his inauguration which has kept investors on their toes given the combination of market friendly and unfriendly policies that got him elected.
"Deregulation was the latest target for the President which provided a big boost to financial stocks on Friday as he aims to undo some of the regulatory burden created by Dodd-Frank following the financial crisis.