Source: Sharecast
STOCKS TO WATCH
Polymer solutions firm Victrex lifted its full‑year pre‑tax profit guidance on Wednesday as strong trading momentum continued into the final quarter. Victrex now expects underlying pre-tax profits of £45m to £47m for FY26, ahead of its previous £42m to £44m range, after Q4 delivered further year‑on‑year growth across aerospace, value‑added resellers and electronics. The FTSE 250-listed firm said all regions were performing well, with Asia‑Pacific showing particularly strong progress, while initial benefits from its completed 10% headcount reduction were beginning to flow through, supporting at least £10m of annualised savings from FY27.
Israel-focused oil and gas producer Energean posted a fall in half-year profits on Wednesday as a result of a 41 day production suspension due to the US-Israeli war on Iran. Energean said core earnings fell 5% to $478m in the six months ended 30 June and reiterated guidance for the full year. However, it cut exploration expenditure forecasts to $5 to $10m from $10 to $15m.
NEWSPAPER ROUND-UP
Flight delays and cancellations were expected to continue into Wednesday at UK airports after another air traffic control failure kept planes grounded for hours, affecting hundreds of thousands of passengers. At least 177 flights scheduled for Wednesday to and from UK airports had been cancelled, plane tracking site Flightradar24 said, "nearly all at London Heathrow". More than 1,000 were cancelled by about 2000 BST on Tuesday. – Guardian
Andy Burnham should tackle inequality in the UK by introducing a wealth tax, universal free personal social care and bringing gas and electricity networks under public ownership, according to a report from more than a dozen influential thinkers. In the lead-up to the first budget of the chancellor, John Healey, this autumn, the Compass thinktank has collated 70 policy options from 15 leftwing thinkers that they argue would deliver on the prime minister's promise to end 40 years of neoliberalism. – Guardian
An online gambling giant owned by Britain's richest woman is to cut hundreds of jobs after Labour's tax raid on the industry. Bet365, which billionaire Denise Coates controls, said up to 300 jobs would be lost at its headquarters in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, where it employs about 5,500 people. A further 40 roles will be affected at its offices in Gibraltar and Malta. - Telegraph
Lenders potentially face a fresh wave of legal challenges from consumers about credit agreements stretching back decades after a county court ruling that may have far-reaching implications. It represents another legal threat to the consumer finance sector, which is already facing a multibillion-pound flood of compensation claims over the car loans mis-selling scandal. – The Times
Britain sold £4.25bn of 30-year bonds on Tuesday with the highest yield since comparable records began in 1998, as rising global borrowing costs cast a shadow over John Healey's plans for his first budget as chancellor. The £4.25bn sale of the 2056 government bond, or 30-year gilt, drew a yield of 5.82%, the highest for any bond sale since the Debt Management Office, the government body in charge of selling public debt to investors, was created nearly 30 years ago. The higher cost of borrowing came with warnings of a £20bn hit to the public finances. – The Times
US CLOSE
Major indices closed lower on Tuesday as a shortened trading week began with investors focused on rising geopolitical and trade tensions, while a renewed surge in oil prices added to inflation worries.
At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.18% at 52,786.07, while the S&P 500 shed 0.58% to 7,673.52 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 0.32% softer at 26,421.41.
Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com