Profits lifts at Legal & General, Restaurant Group ends challenging year
London open
The FTSE 100 is expected to open 14 points lower on Wednesday, after closing down 0.15% at 7,338.99 on Tuesday.
Stocks to watch
Insurer Legal and General said full year pre-tax profits rose 17% to £1.6bn as the net cash increased 12% to £1.4bn. Adjusted operating profits rose to £1.6bn from £1.4bn. Earnings per share were up 19% at 22.2p. The full year dividend was up 7% 14.35p a share. “With further political and economic uncertainty anticipated in 2017 and beyond, we expect further market volatility. The risk of slowing global economic activity remains and no business model can be fully immunised,” L&G said.
Frankie & Benny’s and Chiquito owner Restaurant Group said 2016 was “challenging” following poor trading across its leisure brands with like-for-like sales down. Revenue was up 3.7% to £710.7m but like-for-like sales were down 3.9% compared to to the previous year.
Online retail trading provider CMC Markets announced a major new stockbroking partnership with Australia and New Zealand Banking Group on Wednesday., which would result in CMC becoming the second largest stockbroker in Australia by both number of clients and trades executed. Following a transition period, CMC will service more than 500,000 ANZ retail stockbroking clients under the ANZ Share Investing brand, with gross revenue projected to increase by approximately AUD 40m
Newspaper round-up
Chancellor Philip Hammond is to announce tax rises to meet a fresh round of spending commitments and reject calls to increase borrowing, when he unveils his maiden Budget later today. It is expected Mr Hammond will rely on taxes to raise extra spending for social care and business rates. - Telegraph
Supermarket giant Sainsbury’s has dropped an ambitious target to get consumers to halve their household food waste after finding it was more difficult than expected to achieve behavioural change. Sainsbury’s launched its “Waste Less, Save More” programme in 2016 – a £10m five-year plan to help customers save money by reducing their food waste. - Guardian
Lord Heseltine was sacked last night as a government adviser for supporting a House of Lords rebellion that inflicted a historic defeat on the government. The former deputy prime minister was one of 13 Tory peers to rebel against the government by amending its Article 50 bill to give parliament the final say on any European Union agreement. - Times
US close
US stocks retreated again on Tuesday as the rally in cyclical stocks stalled, health stocks stumbled as Donald Trump held firm on his election promises on healthcare, and the dollar also gained.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 0.14% at 20,924.76, the S&P 500 lost 0.29% to 2,368.39, while the Nasdaq was up off 0.26% at 5,833.93.
"While headline equity indexes remain close to their record high, the rally in cyclical stocks has stalled, signaling possible hurdles for the equity market and economic activity at a time when the Fed is ready to raise interest rates sooner and more than markets had previously expected," said Kathy Bostjancic at Oxford Economics.