Antofagasta revenue rises, biopharm a drag for Spirax-Sarco

Stocks to watch

Antofagasta reported first-half revenue of $2.89bn on Thursday - a 14.3% increase year-on-year, primarily due to higher copper and by-product sales volumes and prices. The FTSE 100 miner said EBITDA reached $1.33bn, up 7.5%, despite a 14.8% increase in operating costs. Copper production grew 10%, and its 2023 guidance was revised to between 640,00 and 670,000 tonnes, with capital expenditure projections remaining at $1.9bn.

Spirax-Sarco Engineering reported a 13% increase in first-half revenues on Thursday, with a notable 15% sales growth figure in steam specialties. However, the FTSE 100 company said biopharm sales within Watson-Marlow decreased 21%, contributing to a 7% decline in statutory operating profit. Despite the challenges, the board raised the interim dividend has been by 8% to 46p, with a return to growth in biopharm projected for 2024.

Newspaper round-up

Joe Biden on Wednesday signed an executive order that will narrowly prohibit certain US investments in sensitive technology in China and require government notification of funding in other tech sectors. The long-awaited order authorises the US treasury secretary to prohibit or restrict certain US investments in Chinese entities in three sectors: semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies, and certain artificial intelligence systems. – Guardian

Oleksiy Chernyshov, the chief executive of Ukraine’s largest oil and gas company Naftogaz, wants Europe to store its gas in war-torn Ukraine. Naftogaz believes it can become the “power bank of Europe”, he says, despite the conflict. “I would like to underline that the infrastructure we are using is underground,” he adds down the line from Kyiv as a missile alarm sounds in the background. - Telegraph

SoftBank is in talks with Amazon to become a lead investor in Arm’s blockbuster listing in New York next month – just a day after the chip maker posted a loss. The Japanese conglomerate, which snapped up the Cambridge firm in 2016, has been ramping up efforts to secure investment for its upcoming £55billion initial public offering on the Nasdaq. Online retail giant Amazon is reportedly eyeing an anchor investment which would provide key backing for the float. - Daily Mail

The industrial manufacturer headed by Nat Rothschild, the prominent financier, has been picked as Tesla’s electric car charging partner in the US. Volex, which employs 8,000 people in 22 countries, will supply connectors to Tesla’s electric vehicle (EV) charging points as they are rolled out in the US. Volex said it was ‘stocked and ready’ to immediately supply it. Analysts at Peel Hunt said: ‘This confirms Volex’s strong position in the global EV charging market.’ - Daily Mail

Lotus Cars is on the road to producing a record number of sports cars from its factory on an old airfield in the Norfolk countryside. The Hethel assembly line of the 75-year-old motoring marque, forever linked to Colin Chapman, its maverick founder and design engineer, rolled out 2,200 of the Lotus Emira, its latest and last petrol production sports car, in the first half of this year. With strong demand reckoned to be in the high thousands, it is likely that by the end of the year it will hit an all-time Lotus record of 5,000 units produced. - The Times

US close

Wall Street put in a subdued performance on Wednesday, with major indices trending downwards as attention shifted towards forthcoming key economic data on US inflation, set to be released later in the week.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.54%, settling at 35,123.36 points, while the broader S&P 500 index declined by 0.7% to conclude at 4,467.71 points.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was the hardest hit among the primary indices, sliding 1.17% to end the session at 13,722.02 points.

On the currency front, the dollar was last up 0.01% on sterling, trading at 78.63p, while it depreciated 0.01% against the euro to 91.11 euro cents.

It also slipped 0.03% against the yen, changing hands at JPY 143.68.