Croda ends first half as expected, higher prices drive Unilever earnings growth

Stocks to watch

Croda International reported first-half results in line with its revised expectations on Tuesday, with pro forma sales down 6%, driven by reduced inventory levels in consumer, crop, and industrial markets. While consumer care sales remained flat, life sciences saw an 8% increase excluding prior period Covid-19 lipid sales, and industrial specialties experienced a 20% decline after adjusting for divestment in the prior period. Despite lower profits, the firm maintained its interim dividend and expressed confidence in its future performance.

Consumer goods giant Unilever delivered a 3.3% rise in interim earnings driven by higher prices and said it expected underlying price growth to moderate through the year. Underlying operating profit came in at €5.2bn as underlying sales grew 9.1% to €30.4bn. “In a volatile and high-cost environment, we will deliver another year of strong underlying sales growth in 2023,” said chief executive Hein Schumacher.

Newspaper round-up

Big pay increases for highly paid workers in London and the south-east have masked real wage cuts across large swathes of the economy and led to a widening in the UK’s geographical earnings gap, a leading think-tank has said. A study from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that while workers in some sectors – such as manufacturing, education and hospitality – had fallen in inflation-adjusted terms, there had been significant rises for those employed in the business services sector, the City and IT. – Guardian

Airlines flying to Heathrow have been told to carry as much fuel as possible in their tanks because of supply problems at Britain’s largest airport, in a controversial practice that can increase carbon emissions. The airport asked airlines to carry excess fuel on the way to London and to avoid carrying too much when departing, citing supply issues, in a notice sent on Sunday. The notice covered nine days from Sunday 23 July to Monday 31 July. – Guardian

The Silicon Valley entrepreneur behind ChatGPT has unveiled a plan to scan the iris of every person in the world to help distinguish real people from sophisticated machines. Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, on Monday launched his project Worldcoin in Britain and 34 other countries. – Telegraph

Virgin Media O2 is cutting 2,000 jobs as it battles to reduce costs under the burden of billions of pounds of borrowing. Redundancy notices were issued to some staff on Monday night. Unions were notified in June that between 800 and 2,000 jobs were at risk and the company is understood to have opted to cut the maximum number of roles. - Telegraph

Credit Suisse has been hit with a record fine by the Bank of England as part of $388 million of penalties levied on the lender for risk management failures exposed by the implosion of Archegos. The Bank’s Prudential Regulation Authority said its £87 million fine was for “extremely serious” faults at the Swiss lender — now owned by UBS, its national rival — that were “symptomatic of an unsound risk culture”. – The Times

US close

Monday ended on a high note on Wall Street as major indices managed to secure positive finishes.

Investors were holding their breath ahead of a packed week of central bank policy decisions, with key inputs expected from the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of Japan.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average maintained its rally, advancing 0.52% to close at 35,411.24, making for the index’s longest winning streak in six years.

Joining the Dow on the upside, the S&P 500 edged up 0.4% to finish at 4,554.64, while the Nasdaq Composite eked out gains of 0.19% to settle at 14,058.87.

In currencies, the dollar was last up 0.09% on sterling to trade at 78.02p, and by 0.02% against the euro to stand at 90.4 euro cents.