Sharecast - Stocks to watch
Government contractor Capita (LON:CPI) posted a loss for the half-year, including taking a hit of up to £25m from a cyber attack on its computer systems earlier this year. The company made a loss before tax of £67.9m, compared with a profit of £0.1m due to business exits, non-core portfolio goodwill impairment and costs associated with the cyber incident. On an adjusted basis, Capita’s pre-tax profit increased by £8.4m to £33.1m. Turnover rose 3% to £1.47bn.
Advertising giant WPP (LON:WPP) on Friday cut its like-for-like growth forecast for the full year due as North America revenues fell in the second quarter. The company said it now expected growth of 1.5-3%, downgraded from a previous estimate of 3-5%, driven by lower spending from technology clients. Interim profit before tax fell more than halved to £204m from £419m a year ago. "Our performance in the first half has been resilient with Q2 growth accelerating in all regions except the USA, which was impacted in the second quarter by lower spending from technology clients and some delays in technology-related projects,” said chief executive Mark Read.
In the press
Budget homeware chain Wilko was yesterday teetering on the brink of collapse, putting around 12,000 jobs at risk. The retailer, which has around 400 stores, said that it was primed to appoint administrators after struggling to find a financial lifeline. In recent years the High Street has been struggling with painful cost increases, while shoppers’ budgets have been restricted by historically high inflation levels. - Daily Mail
Five savings providers have announced they are upping easy-access deals following the Bank of England's base rate hike. Skipton Building Society and Nationwide Building Society (LON:NBS) are among those upping their variable rates in response to the Bank of England adding 0.25 percentage points on to base rate to take it to 5.25 per cent earlier today. HSBC (LON:HSBA) has boosted rates on its easy-access accounts, Isas and children's accounts, while First Direct bank has also upped rates across its easy access accounts and Isa. - Daily Mail
Oil prices rose by more than 2 per cent yesterday after Saudi Arabia warned that it would extend cuts to production in conjunction with Russia into September and possibly beyond. Saudi Arabia said it would extend a voluntary oil output cut of one million barrels per day for another month to include September, adding it could be extended beyond that or deepened. Its daily production is expected to be about 9 million barrels in September. - The Times
US close
Wall Street's main indices finished slightly lower, despite the release of mostly positive economic data, as investors continued to try and make heads or tails of the downgrade of the country's sovereign debt rating the day before.
"US stocks are getting hit with a one-two punch as Fitch’s US sovereign downgrade overnight and on expectations the US Treasury will continue to boost the size of their debt sales," said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda.
"Earnings have been still coming mostly better than expected but the major indexes don't seem to have anything left in the tank to take Wall Street back to record highs."
The Dow Jones Industrials dipped 0.19% to 35,215.89, the S&P 500 by 0.25% to 4,501.89 and the Nasdaq Composite by 0.1% to 13,959.72.
The VIX volatility index on the other hand was up by 5.59% to 16.99.