Dunelm lifts dividend, United Utilities trading in line despite weather

Stocks to watch

UK furniture and homewares chain Dunelm lifted its dividend and declared a special payout after a rise in interim profits and sales. The dividend was lifted 7% to 16p a share. Shareholders will also receive a special 35-a-share payout as pre-tax profit for the six months to December 30 rose 4.8% to £123m and sales increased 4.5% to £872.5m.

United Utilities reported strong operating performance in a trading update on Wednesday, with no significant changes to its financial guidance for the 2024 financial year since its interim results despite weather-related challenges. The FTSE 100 water company said annual rainfall in 2023 was exceptionally high across the north west of England, adversely impacting its 2023-2024 outcome delivery incentive (ODI) performance by around £25m. Net ODI outperformance was expected to be around £40m for 2023-2024.

Newspaper round-up

UK shop workers are facing 1,300 incidents of violence and abuse a day and a battle to control “brazen” acts of shoplifting, as pressure mounts on ministers to intervene to protect retail employees. Retailers saw the number of incidents of racial abuse, sexual harassment, physical assaults and threats with weapons rise 50% last year, while thefts more than doubled to 16.7m incidents, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC), the trade body which represents most major retailers. – Guardian

Lyft beat estimates for fourth-quarter profits on Tuesday and said it would generate positive free cash flow for the first time in 2024, as the ride-share platform reaps the benefits of heavy cost-cutting. Company shares surged nearly 60% in extended trading but erased a third of those gains after Lyft’s chief financial officer corrected a major mistake in the earnings report. Erin Brewer had said that the company would grow by 500 basis points (5%) in 2024, but later said that the real increase would be a factor of 10 lower – 50 basis points (0.5%). In 2023, the stock gained about 36%. – Guardian

British taxpayers have been asked to stump up cash to fund nuclear power plants being built in the UK by the French energy giant EDF. Bruno Le Maire, France’s finance minister, said on Tuesday he would be asking Jeremy Hunt for “an equitable sharing of costs” for the power stations which include Hinkley Point C, in Somerset, and Sizewell C, in Suffolk. – Telegraph

Waitrose is to cut hundreds of prices as the retailer battles against Marks & Spencer for Britain’s middle class shoppers. The supermarket said on Wednesday it would invest £30m into lowering the price of swathes of its own-brand products. Waitrose’s price cuts will span 200 items across meat, fruit and vegetables, as well as kitchen cupboard staples. The retailer promised a further round of price cuts in the spring. – Telegraph

British American Tobacco has retained “call” options to reacquire its Russian and Belarusian businesses, it has emerged. The owner of Lucky Strike and Dunhill cigarettes agreed to sell the businesses in September, 18 months after it had committed to doing so in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. However, BAT did not disclose at the time that it had retained the option to buy them back. – The Times

US close

Stocks on Wall Street fell through to the closing bell on Tuesday, with the Dow posting its most significant decline since March last year as investors grappled with a January inflation report that exceeded expectations.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.35%, closing at 38,272.75 points, while the S&P 500 saw a decline of 1.37%, ending the day at 4,953.17 points.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite faced the most substantial setback, dropping 1.8% to settle at 15,655.60 points by the end of the trading session.

In currency markets, the dollar was last 0.03% stronger on sterling to trade at 79.43p, while it remained stable against the common currency at 93.38 euro cents, and decreased 0.11% on the yen, changing hands at JPY 150.63.

At the top of the agenda was fresh data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which revealed that inflation surged at a faster pace than anticipated in January, driven largely by escalating shelter prices.