Segro sells logistics warehouse portfolio, consumer stocks in focus

Stocks to watch

A joint venture half-owned by Segro has sold a portfolio of logistics warehouses in Italy for €327m (£275m), the company said on Friday. The portfolio consists of four warehouses, two located in Milan and two in Rome, and has a total floor space of 338,745 sq m generates a passing rent of €19m. The Segro European Logistics Partnership (SELP) is a joint venture in which Segro holds a 50% interest. It was established in October 2013 and owns €6.7bn of big box warehouses and development land across seven Continental European countries. Segro acts as its asset, property and development manager.

Consumer-facing stocks will be in focus, after data showed consumer confidence remained subdued in July, a long-running survey showed on Friday, as people adopted a "wait and see" approach following the general election result. The latest consumer confidence index from GfK was -13, up just one point on June. Within that, people’s perception of their personal finances over the year improved two points, to -8. But perceptions about their finances going forward eased one point, to 3. Household opinions on the economy, both over the last 12 months and looking to the year ahead, were unchanged, at -32 and -11, respectively.

Newspaper round-up

Liquidators of Arena Television, the failed outside broadcast business at the centre of what has been called Britain’s “largest ever” asset-based lending fraud, are suing Lloyds Banking Group for up to £285 million. Lloyds and its Bank of Scotland subsidiary are accused of processing payments “without authority”, allegedly allowing Arena’s directors to perpetrate a “substantial and wide-ranging fraud” against scores of lenders, court filings show. - The Times

Labour has been urged to let tens of thousands of pensioners foot the bill for social care costs by delaying reforms, as councils face a £30bn funding blackhole. England’s largest councils have warned Sir Keir Starmer that without more money, reforms to prevent people from being forced to sell their homes to pay for care are “impossible”. Under reforms first proposed by Boris Johnson when he was prime minister in 2020, councils will be forced to implement a lifetime cap of £86,000 on care costs from October next year. - Telegraph

Working parents who are saving as much as £10,000 a year on their nursery costs could be hit with unexpected tax bills because of a clampdown on the misuse of a childcare “benefit” offered by some employers. HM Revenue and Customs has turned its sights on some workplace nursery benefit schemes which allow employees to pay the fees out of their pre-tax salary, resulting in them making big savings on income tax and national insurance. - Guardian

Barack Obama is understood to have told friends that President Biden must seriously reconsider whether he should remain as the Democratic Party’s White House nominee. The former president is said to have studied polling data in recent days and concluded that Biden, 81, who served for eight years as his vice-president, has a narrowing chance of beating Donald Trump. - The Times

British black comedy Baby Reindeer and the new series of Bridgerton helped drive record revenues of $9.6bn (£7.4bn) at Netflix, the streaming giant disclosed last night. Profits for the three months ending in June climbed by 44pc to $2.1bn compared to the previous year, while the US technology business added more than 8m new subscribers, beating Wall Street expectations with a total of 277.6m paying viewers. Executives at Netflix hailed the surprise success of Baby Reindeer, which has racked up more than 88m views since it was released in April. - Telegraph

US close

Major indices were in the red at the close of trading on Thursday following a heavy tech selloff in the previous session that saw the Nasdaq Composite deliver its worst daily performance since December 2022.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.29% at 40,665.02, while the S&P 500 lost 0.78% to 5,554.59 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 0.70% weaker at 17,871.22.

The Dow closed 533.06 points lower on Thursday, reversing much of yesterday's gains.

Elsewhere on the macro front, manufacturing activity in Philadelphia rose to a three-month high in July, with new orders and shipments rising to their highest levels in more than two years, according to data released by the region's Federal Reserve Bank on Thursday.

The index for general activity in July's Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey increased to 13.9 this month with 39% of firms reporting growth in activity, compared with 25% reporting decreases and 29% experiencing no change.