Chemring secures £278m in contracts, Anglo American sells stake in Australia venture

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The FTSE 100 is expected to open nine points lower on Monday, having closed up 0.83% on Friday at 8,177.15.

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Chemring Group has secured £278m in contracts, it announced on Monday, with its Norwegian subsidiary Chemring Nobel signing a €231m, 12-year framework agreement with Diehl Defence for supplying MCX energetic material over five years starting in 2026. The FTSE 250 company said its US subsidiary Chemring Energetic Devices had meanwhile received a $106m order for missile program components, also with deliveries beginning in 2026. It said it expected its adjusted operating profit for the 2024 financial year to meet consensus forecasts of £70.9m.

Anglo American has announced the A$1.6bn (£0.8bn) sale of a stake in the Jellinbah joint venture in Australia as part of its strategy to exit the steelmaking coal industry. The mining group, which in the summer revealed plans to spin off or exit several businesses including its diamond, platinum and coking coal operations, said on Monday that it has offloaded its 33.3% interest in Jellinbah, which owns a 70% stake in the Jellinbah East and Lake Vermont steelmaking coal mines in Australia, to project partner Zashvin.

Newspaper round-up

Fraudsters may have stolen £500,000 from a taxpayer-funded scheme aimed at accelerating the removal of dangerous cladding from buildings, the public spending watchdog has revealed. The National Audit Office said the government decision to prioritise speed in handing out money to building owners had increased its risk of losses from fraud. The warning came in an NAO report into the government’s progress in remediating dangerous cladding from blocks after the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017. – Guardian

One thousand workers in the UK will get extra time off with no loss of pay in the first official pilot by the four-day week campaign under the Labour government. The British Society for Immunology and Crate Brewery in Hackney, east London, are among the businesses to have joined the latest trial, which is being led by the 4 Day Week Campaign, as it launches on Monday. – Guardian

Cornwall is home to more solar panels than anywhere else in the country, new figures show, fuelling a growing backlash from local farmers and small businesses. The south-west county now boasts more than 27,000 sites generating solar energy, with even more planned under Ed Miliband’s green energy rollout. The spread of solar energy across the Cornish countryside has been welcomed by climate campaigners. However, it has also sparked anger among residents and councillors who claim the local landscape has been ruined by an influx of large glass solar panels. – Telegraph

Shares in Apple will be in focus on Monday after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway continued to slash its stake in the tech company as part of a selling spree that has lifted his cash pile to record levels. The billionaire’s industrials-to-insurance conglomerate disclosed on Saturday that it had reduced its position in Apple to $69.9 billion in the third quarter, indicating it had shed a further 100 million shares in the period, or a quarter of its holding. – The Times

The head of the International Energy Agency has backed the government’s ambitious plan to clean up Britain’s power supply by 2030 so the UK can keep its lead in cutting-edge energy industries. Labour has faced criticism for its ambition to supply almost all the country’s electricity with wind, solar and nuclear energy in only six years’ time. – The Times

US close

US stocks rebounded on Friday while bond yields surged as a much lower-than-expected jobs report made life easier for the Federal Reserve to ease monetary policy next week.

The Dow finished 0.7% higher at 42,052.19 after three days of losses, while the S&P 500 gained 0.4% to 5,728.80 and the Nasdaq rose 0.8% to 18,239.92.

The yield on a 10-year US Treasury was up 10.7 basis points at 4.397% – its highest level since July.

The US economy added just 12,000 jobs in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, well below September's downwardly revised 223,000 print and expectations of 113,000.

Last month's non-farm payrolls figure marked the weakest level of job growth since December 2020 – when 243,000 jobs were lost – as a result of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, as well as strikes at Boeing.