Frasers raises full-year guidance, Ocado lifts earnings forecast

Stocks to watch

Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group raised full year profit guidance as it reported higher profits at the half-year driven by strong sales online and at stores as they reopened after the Covid-19 lockdown. The company on Thursday said underlying core earnings would be 20% - 30% higher. Interim pre-tax profits rose 17.6% to £106.1m on a 7.4% fall in revenue to £1.9bn. Frasers made underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of £226.3m for the six months to October 25, compared with £181.2m a year earlier.

Online supermarket Ocado lifted its full-year earnings forecast on Thursday as it reported a jump in fourth-quarter revenue amid continued strong demand. In an update for the 13 weeks to 29 November, the company said retail revenue grew 34.9% to £579.6m. This reflects "strong demand for online grocery and the continuation of a smoothed trading week compared to the peaks and troughs that reflected normal shopping habits pre-Covid," it said.

Automotive retailer Inchcape said full-year profits would be “materially ahead” of expectations and was considering reinstating its dividend after a better-than-expected performance in November. The company on Thursday said it expected pre-tax profit, excluding exceptionals, would be materially ahead of market consensus of £108m as the impact of the second UK Covid-19 lockdown was not as bad as first feared.

Newspaper round-up

The US government and a coalition of 48 states and districts have filed parallel lawsuits against Facebook in a major antitrust offensive that accused the social media behemoth of anticompetitive behavior and could ultimately force its breakup. At the heart of both antitrust actions, announced on Wednesday, is Facebook’s dominance of the social media landscape, and whether the company gobbled up potential competitors and blocked market access to others that could have eaten into its staggering market share. - Guardian

Commercial passenger flights have resumed on Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft for the first time in 20 months, after Brazilian airline Gol resumed operations using the plane. The aircraft was grounded globally in March 2019 after two fatal plane crashes in the space of six months, which killed a total of 346 people. The American company’s previously bestselling aeroplane was given approval to return to the skies by US regulators in November. - Guardian

Ministers were forced on Wednesday to relax rules limiting lorry drivers' hours amid growing fears that Christmas could be ruined by missing presents, as Britain's ports reel from Covid disruption and stockpiling ahead of Brexit. Products including Apple’s new AirPods Max headphones will not arrive in time for the holiday season for many customers placing new orders online, with delays of up to 14 weeks. - Telegraph

Uber drivers and Airbnb landlords face a VAT raid as Rishi Sunak seeks to bolster the UK’s battered public finances amid fears that the rise of the sharing economy means losing billions in tax receipts. The Treasury is considering toughening up rules for the sharing economy, which includes Uber, Airbnb and Deliveroo. Applying VAT could mean prices of using the services rise, potentially by up to a fifth. - Telegraph

Doordash, the world’s largest meal delivery company, made a spectacular debut on Wall Street last night as investors again showed an insatiable appetite for fast-growing technology firms. Shares in the seven-year-old business closed up 83.5 per cent, or $85.20, at $187.20, valuing it at $71.3 billion after one of the biggest initial public offerings in the United States this year. - The Times

US close

Wall Street closed in negative territory on Wednesday, as stocks climbed down from their record highs in the previous session.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.35% at 30,068.81, the S&P 500 lost 0.79% to 3,672.82, and the Nasdaq Composite was off 1.94% at 12,338.95.

The Dow closed 105.07 points lower, putting the gains recorded a session earlier into reverse.

Optimism around Pfizer and BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine rollout across the UK drove some gains earlier in the session, while hopes that the Senate would shortly provide a stimulus package to help prop up markets amid an ever-increasing number of new coronavirus cases across the country were also in focus.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said he wanted Congress to pass a Covid-19 relief bill with neither legal immunity for businesses nor state and local government relief, while minority leader Chuck Schumer said McConnell's proposal was not in good faith.