Shares in Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) fell by up to 5% on Thursday despite half-year profits doubling on the same period last year. Didn’t investors get the memo?! No, it looks like they got the other one – the ‘3000 more job cuts and 200 more branch closures by end-2017‘ one. Oh, and the ‘FCA investigation into the…
Shares in UK listed house builder Taylor Wimpey have gone up by 7% after the company reported H1 2016 earnings on 27 July. No Brexit effects seen thus far – but the results were for the period mostly before the vote, during which time everyone thought the last thing that would happen would be a…
BT shareholders are breathing a sigh of relief this morning after OFCOM (UK Telecoms regulator) opted not to pull the rug out from under its key local network business. A favourable response to competition discussions sees the UK incumbent obliged to open up its Openreach network to competitors (Sky, TalkTalk; both shares muted) and consult on…
Shares in budget airline easyJet (EZJ) have taken a bit of a bashing this week after the company issued a profit warning. Hardly surprising, one might think, given the fact that a) it looks as if the Costa Del Sol is now the only ‘safe’ place left in which to take a summer break and…
Ryanair (RYA) may have struck an uncharacteristically cautious tone in its Q1 results statement this morning but it has nonetheless been rewarded with share price gains of 5-6%. This is also in spite of more weekend attacks in Germany that add to an already troubled environment for European travel, made worse for UK flyers via…
Macro observations It’s a cautiously optimistic return from a weekend in which a number of fatal attacks took place in Germany and one in the US. Economics-wise, we’re due a central bank update from the Bank of Japan which is likely to apply more of the same stimulus measures on Friday. More pressing will be the US Federal Reserve on Wednesday. No change in…