Greggs Q3 total sales up 14.6%, Legal & General FY operating profit growth in line with first half

Stocks to watch

High street bakery chain Greggs said on Tuesday that total sales were up 14.6% over the 13 weeks ended 1 October, putting it on track to meet full-year expectations.

Greggs said it continued to trade well over the third quarter, with like-for-like sales in company-managed shops rising 9.7% year-on-year. While the FTSE-100 listed group stated year-on-year growth moderated in August, given the particularly strong "staycation" effect seen in 2021, momentum was said to have returned in September.

UK insurer Legal & General said it expected full-year operating profit growth to be up in line with the first half of 8% and annual capital generation of £1.8bn.

"We expect interest rate increases to continue to have a positive impact on our earnings per share and on our solvency coverage ratio," the company said on Tuesday.

Newspaper round-up

British shoppers are expected to spend £4.4bn less on non-essentials – a fall of 22% – in the run-up to Christmas as a surge in the cost of living puts a squeeze on their spare cash. Almost 60% of shoppers expect to cut back on non-food spending in the so-called "golden quarter", or last three months of the year when most retailers book the majority of profits, according to research by Retail Economics with retail technology firm Metapack. – Guardian

John Lewis has pledged to have "buy back or take back" schemes operating in every product category by 2025 and to develop more rental and resale options as it steps up efforts to be a more sustainable business. The group, which runs Waitrose supermarkets as well as a string of department stores, will also invest £2.0m over the next five years to restore and protect nature in Norfolk, a key source of meat, cereal and vegetable products, and in India's Noyyal and Bhavani river basins, where it sources cotton, under a partnership with the wildlife charity WWF. – Guardian

A prototype nuclear fusion power station will be built at the site of one of the UK's last coal-burning stations, Jacob Rees-Mogg has announced. In a speech to the Tory party conference, the Business Secretary said the pioneering facility in Nottinghamshire will be "a beacon of bountiful, green energy" and prove the technology's commercial viability. – Telegraph

Legal & General has made hundreds of millions of pounds selling the pension products that forced the Bank of England into a £65.0bn bailout last week. The FTSE 100 pensions giant has earned around £80.0m annually from offering so-called liability-driven investment funds to clients in recent years, according to analyst estimates. – Telegraph

Sustainable investment policies are damaging businesses, according to an American activist who is urging Chevron to pump more oil, Apple to ditch a racial equity audit and Disney to avoid politics. Vivek Ramaswamy, a conservative investor, argued that the environmental, social and governance agenda, an increasing priority in boardrooms worldwide, is "sucking the lifeblood out of a democracy". – The Times

US close

Wall Street stocks closed higher on Monday after major indices wrapped up the third quarter in the red.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 2.66% at 29,490.89, while the S&P 500 was 2.59% firmer at 3,678.43 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 2.27% stronger at 10,815.43.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com