Weekly review

Equity view

Online trading company IG announced on Friday that it has appointed Paul Mainwaring as chief financial officer designate.

Aveva Group has announced the stepping down of chief executive Richard Longdon after three decades at the data and IT group, which also said it could benefit from a potentially sizeable currency gain for the full year due to weakness of sterling since the EU referendum.

Four bankers who worked for Barclays were given prison sentences on Thursday after being found guilty of conspiring to rig global global benchmark interest rates in the Libor scandal.

Marks & Spencer saw a huge drop in clothing sales in the first quarter as new chief executive Steve Rowe's recovery plan for general merchandise took hold, though he remained confident about meeting full year guidance.

Gold Miner Centamin said second quarter production from its Sukari operation in Egypt increased 12% to 140,306 ounces on the previous quarter and 30% year-on-year.

Cyber security and risk mitigation consultant NCC’s full year revenues grew as they joined the FTSE 250 index but it also raised concerns about cyber security in light of Brexit.

A trading update from homewares retailer Dunelm showed steady growth for the year to 2 July, with pre-tax profit remaining on course to hit targets of around a £128-129m range.

Bovis said it was “too early” to assess the impact of Brexit on the UK housing market as it reported half year trading in line with expectations and record half year volume of 1,601 new homes, a 5% increase.

Associated British Foods said the “significantly” weaker pound after last week's Brexit vote had improved the outlook for the current financial year and it no longer expect a decline in adjusted earnings per share.

Tile specialist Topps Tiles posted its third quarter trading update on Wednesday, with like-for-like revenues increasing by 6. 2% in the 13 weeks to 2 July.

Low cost airline easyJet reported a 5. 8% jump in passengers for the month of June on Wednesday, with 6. 94m customers taking to their orange jets, compared with 6. 56m in June 2015.

Sainsbury’s will press ahead with its proposed acquisition of Argos’ owner Home Retail despite economic uncertainty surrounding Brexit.

British Airways and Iberia parent International Consolidated Airlines said group traffic, as measured in revenue passenger kilometres, rose 13. 6% in June from last year.

Imagination Technologies, which design chips for Apple, swung to a loss for the year ended 30 April as revenue dropped amid a significant restructuring of the business.

Standard Life Investments has suspended trading in its UK property fund after uncertainty surrounding markets in Britain after the country voted to leave the European Union last month.

Housebuilder Persimmon said it was still too soon to judge the effect of Brexit on the new homes market, adding that trading through the first half had been “strong”.

Budget airline Ryanair reported an 11% increase in traffic in June to 10. 6m customers.

Mining giant Rio Tinto sold its interest in a coal mine in Australia for A$1 as the commodity market continues to struggle.

London Stock Exchange said on Monday that shareholders have voted overwhelmingly in favour of its merger with Deutsche Boerse.

Sainsbury’s and Dansk Supermarked Group said on Monday that following a comprehensive review, they will end their joint venture of trial Netto UK stores that was launched in June 2014.

HSBC confirmed the completion of the sale of its Brazil business on Monday, after announcing on 8 June that it had received all necessary regulatory approvals for the transaction.

Economic news

The quantity of new cars registered in the United Kingdom decreased for just the second time in four years last month after ongoing political and economic uncertainty caused by the decision to leave the European Union.

British shoppers spent less in June in the build up to the European Union (EU) referendum, according BDO.

The UK's total trade deficit in goods and services widened to £2. 3bn in May but was not as bad as the £3. 6bn feared by economists, as exports fell 4. 4% month-on-month and imports were down 3. 5%.

UK consumer confidence dropped at its sharpest rate in more than two decades, a survey from market researchers Gfk has found, as the Brexit referendum stokes worries about the economic outlook and inflation.

Numbers of British workers in permanent jobs in June dropped for the first time in almost four years, according to a UK recruitment survey, said Markit/REC.

Britain is likely to see its second female prime minister by 9 September after Michael Gove was eliminated and Andrea Leadsom joined Theresa May in the next stage of voting.

UK gross domestic product rose by 0. 6% in the three months to June 2016, according to The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) on Thursday.

UK house prices growth surprisingly accelerated to 1. 3% in June versus the previous month, according to data from Halifax, though it cautioned that the underlying pace of house growth "may be easing".

UK industrial production data for May was better than expected, official data showed on Thursday.

UK business confidence and economic optimism fell to a four-year low in the week after the Brexit referendum but still well off the lows of 2008, according to a survey by Lloyds Bank that mirrored recent findings on consumer confidence.

Shop prices in the UK continued to fall in June as food prices sank further in a boost to consumers, according to the BRC-Nielsen shop price index.

The Bank of England has loosened UK bank's requirements to hold extra capital and warned that risks from the country's Brexit vote had already started to "crystallise".

Business confidence in the UK has tumbled in the wake of the vote to leave the European Union, according to research carried out by YouGov and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr).

UK services expansion weakened in June to match April's 38-year low amid a darkening outlook and worries about Brexit, according to data released on Tuesday.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde reportedly said UK gross domestic product could be anywhere between 1.5 and 4.5 percentage points lower by 2019 than would have been the case had it remained within the European Union.

The pace of UK construction slowed more than expected in June, data released on Monday showed.

Chancellor George Osborne plans to cut corporation tax to ensure businesses keep investing in the UK after it opted to leave the European Union.

International events

The June US non-farm payrolls report smashed expectations on Friday, rebounding from a weak jobs report the previous month.

Private sector employment in the US rose more than expected in June, driven by an increase in small-business jobs, according to ADP on Thursday.

Mexicans and Germans put in the longest and least hours respectively at work in 2015, a labour report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) showed.

The United Kingdom has dropped a place in the ranking of the world's largest economies, being overtaken by France for fifth place, according to Reuters.

America´s shortfall in trade with the rest of the world registered an unexpected increase in May as imports rose but sales overseas slipped a tad.

German factory orders ground to a halt in May as uncertainty around Brexit and the impact which it might have on the European single currency weighed on orders from outside the euro area, according to economists.

Rate-setters in Sweden pushed back on market expectations for the start of policy normalisation given heightened uncertainty overseas, in part as a result of Brexit.

Orders for US manufactured goods fell by 1. 0% to $455. 2bn in May after two months of increases, according to the Commerce Department on Tuesday.

Retail sales in the 19 countries that share the euro rose 0. 4% in May, according to the latest figures from Eurostat.

The eurozone services sector recorded a better than expected performance in June, according to purchasing managers index (PMI) data from Markit, though a final reading of the composite index indicated the eurozone endured its weakest second quarter of growth since the end of 2014.

Eurozone investor confidence has fallen to the lowest level since January after Britain voted to leave the European Union, a survey showed on Monday.