Weekly Review

Weekly Review

The FTSE 100 closed down 95.14 points on the week at 6,994.63.

Equity view

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell agreed to sell 185 service stations in the UK to two Motor Fuel Group and Euro Garages.

Fourth-quarter results from Poundland showed the discount retailer had topped a billion pounds of annual sales for the first time.

Hargreaves Lansdown co-founder Peter Hargreaves surprised the market this week by stepping down from the board.

The pace of growth at JD Sports has seen the sportswear retailer sprint past its 2016 forecasts a year early and hurdle £100m of operating profits for the first time.

Telecom Plus warned that profit growth for 2015 and 2016 will be well below market expectations as it unexpectedly wrote down a large amount of unbilled customer debt.

UK housebuilder Persimmon said the ongoing economic recovery helped it make an "encouraging start" to 2015, though political uncertainty ahead of the elections next month was affecting the land market.

Shares in Petra Diamonds plunged on Thursday as the diamond mining group said its annual results are expected to fall below market expectations.

UK department store chain Debenhams posted half-year results above its forecast, reversing a decline in sales over its financial first quarter.

Brewing giant SABMiller impressed the market with a strong finish to its financial year as robust growth in Africa and Latin America helped accelerate top-line momentum in the fourth quarter.

Organic sales from Diageo fell a worse-than-expected 0.7% in the third quarter as the drinks group blamed currency headwinds in Latin America and tough comparatives in the UK.

Unilever lifted it quarterly dividend 6% as consumer goods colossus enjoyed a strong start to 2015 with underlying sales for the first quarter ahead of analyst estimates.

Supermarket group Morrisons plans to cut up to 720 roles at its head office in order to start recruiting for 5,000 shop floor staff.

Spain's Banco Sabadell agreed to formalise the bid for TSB Banking Group valued at approximately £1.7bn, kicking off the acceptance period by the shareholders of the British bank.

Rolls Royce announced its largest ever order win, worth $9.2bn, with Emirates to supply its Trent 900 engines.

Economic news

British retail spending rose at its fastest annual rate in almost a year last month, boosted by Easter falling a month earlier than in 2014, the BRC said. Total retail sales rose 4.7% year-on-year in March.

Hiring intentions of British firms are at 'sky-high' levels, but Britain's failure to increase output continues to puzzle investors, a BDO survey found.

The UK economy narrowly avoided a dip into deflation with official figures showing the country's inflation rate remained at a record low of 0% in March.

Unemployment in Britain fell 5.6% to 1.84m between December and February, its lowest since 2008.

International events

The International Monetary Fund reduced its forecast US economic growth this year to 3.1% from 3.6% previously, but maintained its global growth prediction after lifting its estimates for Japan and the Eurozone.

Apple got 957,000 online requests for its Apple Watch on 10 April; its first day of US pre-orders, according to technology consultancy Slice Intelligence.

Shares in Alcatel-Lucent shot up on Tuesday after Finnish telecom bellwether Nokia confirmed speculation that it is in advanced discussions to acquire the French company.

China's economic output showed the slowest pace of growth in six years during the first quarter of the year, fuelling hopes in the market that policymakers will expand stimulus policies to accelerate growth.

The Eurozone economy's trade surplus almost tripled in February from the month before, signalling that a weakening euro is delivering a boost the economic recovery.

The UK financial regulator has slapped Bank of New York Mellon International with a significant fine for failures in safeguarding around £1.5trn of client assets in the UK.

S&P downgraded its long-term rating on Greece's sovereign debt from B- to CCC+ with a negative outlook, citing a "highly uncertain" outlook.

A protester stole the limelight at the European Central Bank's press conference on Wednesday the bank made no changes to monetary policy.

Wall Street heavyweight Goldman Sachs reported that net revenues came in at a four-year high, as the quarterly top-line at its investment banking unit was at its best since 2007.

Nestle, the world's biggest packaged food maker, said an increase in prices and volume boosted its first quarter sales.

In the City of London and financial centres around the globe traders and analysts were left gnashing their teeth as their Bloomberg computer terminals crashed on Friday morning, with fixed income markets suffering an especially large impact.