AstraZeneca hikes full-year guidance, B&M does the same after strong half-year

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open 15 points lower on Thursday, having closed down 0.11% on Wednesday at 7,401.72.

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AstraZeneca reported strong financial results for the first nine months of 2023 on Thursday, with total revenue reaching $33.8bn, a 5% increase despite a decline in revenue from Covid-19 medicines. Excluding Covid-19 medicines, both total revenue and product sales saw a robust 15% growth. The company increased its guidance for 2023, expecting total revenue excluding Covid-19 medicines to grow by a low-teens percentage and core earnings per share to increase by a low double-digit to low-teens percentage, both at constant currency.

UK and Europe-focused value retailer B&M has raised its guidance for profits and store openings after a strong first half, with double-digit growth in both revenues and earnings. The company, which operates as B&M and Heron Foods across over 1,100 stores in the UK and France, said revenues were up 10.4% on last year at £2.55bn in the six months to 23 September. Adjusted EBITDA rose by 16.1% to £269m, as profit margins improved to 10.5% from 10%. Full-year adjusted EBITDA is now expected to come in at £620m-630m, "materially higher" than last year's £573m. Previous guidance was simply for profits to be "higher".

Newspaper round-up

Insurers operating in the Lloyd’s of London market are the world’s biggest underwriters of fossil fuel projects, research has found. Fifty years after the insurance industry first warned about the impact of the climate crisis, it is continuing to contribute to the climate emergency, the Insure Our Future campaign, a global group of 24 NGOs, said in its annual “scorecard” on 30 major insurers and their involvement in fossil fuels. – Guardian

The RMT union has reached a possible deal with train operators to resolve their long-running national rail dispute, allaying fears of a repeat of last year’s Christmas strikes. The union, which represents 20,000 crew and station staff, has drawn up a “memorandum of understanding” (MOU) with employers to ballot members at train operating companies over a deal that would backdate the 2022 pay rise and extend guarantees over jobs until the end of 2024. – Guardian

Marks & Spencer’s turnaround is well on track, with the department store reclaiming its crown as Britain’s biggest women’s wear retailer and food sales booming. Shares surged nearly 10pc after the retailer unveiled a jump in half-year profit and surging sales. – Telegraph

The UK’s biggest semiconductor manufacturer has been acquired by an American rival after the government forced its owner to sell the business over its links to China. Vishay agreed to buy Newport Wafer Fab (NWF) from Nexperia for $177 million in cash yesterday, bringing to an end a year of uncertainty about the future of the facility and its staff. – The Times

The estimated cost of Britain’s largest private sector infrastructure project to build a fertiliser mine in Yorkshire has tripled in seven years. Anglo American’s Woodsmith project involves extracting polyhalite, a nutrient-rich fertiliser, from a mile beneath the North York Moors National Park, near Whitby, and transporting it on a conveyor belt through a 23-mile tunnel to Teesside for processing. – The Times

US close

Wall Street stocks delivered a mixed performance on Wednesday as investors digested comments from Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.12% at 34,112.27, while the S&P 500 advanced 0.10% to 4,382.78 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 0.08% firmer at 13,650.41.

The Dow closed 40.33 points lower on Wednesday, snapping the blue-chip's recent winning streak. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq, on the other hand, extended their longest winning streak since November 2021 for another session.

Wednesday's primary focus was on a speech from Fed head Jerome Powell, who gave no hints at future monetary policy in an eagerly awaited speech in Washington, but did call on economists to be "flexible and dynamic" in their assessments of the economic outlook.

A week after the Fed kept interest rates unchanged, expectations have risen that the central bank may be done with further rate hikes in the current cycle, particularly with labour market conditions beginning to soften. However, Powell did not make any reference to current monetary policy, like many had hoped for. Instead, he urged the R&S division to be flexible in their methods for forecasting.