Sky and Virgin Media partnering on advertising, Drax to drastically lift dividends
London open
The FTSE 100 is expected to open 18 points lower on Thursday, after it closed down 0.35% at 7,474.40 on Wednesday.
Stocks to watch
Sky issued an update to the market on Thursday morning, announcing that both itself and Liberty Global’s Virgin Media were forming a strategic partnership that would enable businesses of varying sizes to benefit further from “advanced television advertising”, across both the Virgin TV and Sky platforms. The FTSE 100 company said advertisers would be able to target a potential audience over time of more than 30 million viewers, which it said put it on par with “leading social networks”.
As a statement of confidence in its transformation from a generator of coal power to biomass energy, Drax has announced a new dividend policy that will see it pay out £50m this year grow from there on. Yorkshire-based Drax plans to lift adjusted operating profits above £425m by 2025 from the £140m last year, with more than a third expected to come from its retail business and biomass supply.
Newspaper round-up
Britain’s car insurers suffered combined losses of £3.5bn last year due to controversial new compensation rules for serious injuries, according to a report which predicts further sharp rises in insurance premiums, especially for young drivers. Consultancy EY said the new Ogden formula led to significant underwriting losses for the motor insurance market in 2016. - Guardian
The Alternative Investment Market is staining the reputation of the London Stock Exchange. The global business that competes for listings by top companies has been hit by scandals on the LSE’s junior market that have prompted questions about disclosure, transparency and abuse. - The Times
US close
Wall Street ended the session on a mixed note on Thursday as the US central bank to a large degree stuck to its plans to continue tightening policy, including an announcement that it would begin to shrink its balance year in 2017, which served to flatten the yield curve further.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged higher by 0.22% or 46.09 points to 21,374.56 - a new record high - while the S&P 500 drifted lower by 0.10% to end at 2,437.92 but off its worst levels of the day.
In parallel, the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 slipped 0.43% to 5,727.07.
The worst performing segments of the market were marine transportation (-5.54%), coal (-3.36%) and exploration and production (-2.91%).
As expected the Federal Reserve hiked the target range for the Fed funds rate by another 25 basis points to between 1.00 and 1.25% with policymakers on the Potomac signalling they expected another rate increase before the year was out.