British Land snaps up Woolwich Estate, Victrex starts year with strength
London open
The FTSE 100 is expected to open 23 points lower on Friday, having closed down 1.49% at 7,170.69 on Thursday.
Stocks to watch
British Land announced on Friday that it has acquired the Woolwich Estate, covering 4.9 acres in south east London, for a headline price £103m - representing a net initial yield of 4.1%. The FTSE 100 company said the acquisition sat in line with its strategy of focussing on well-connected, mixed use assets which were meeting the “evolving needs” of occupiers and their customers. It explained that the acquisition built on its portfolio of places benefitting from the upcoming Elizabeth Line railway, including Broadgate, Paddington Central and Ealing Broadway, and provided significant potential to drive growth and returns through British Land’s placemaking, asset management and development expertise.
Plastics manufacturer Victrex reported a very strong start to the year, with industrial sales led by consumer electronics to offset slightly weaker performance from medical customers. First quarter revenue of £78.7m was up 41% on the prior year as sales volumes increased 30% to 1,051 tonnes, though the comparative period was quite weak.
Newspaper round-up
Senior officials in the Qatari government are set to challenge the evidence of Carillion directors who at parliamentary hearings this week blamed the Gulf state for the construction company’s demise. Their intervention comes as the official receiver laid off another 101 Carillion workers, taking total job losses since the government put the business into compulsory liquidation three weeks ago to 930. - The Times
Spooked investors caused Asian markets to plummet on Friday following what some described as panic selling on Wall Street which saw the Dow Jones drop by more than 1,000 points for the second time in a week. A mass sell-off spread to China for the first time in the current crisis as the Shanghai Composite index fell by 5.6% at one stage and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong slipped more than 4%. - Guardian
Newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror has agreed a near-£200m deal to buy a string of Northern & Shell titles including the Daily Express and Daily Star. The deal will see the publisher of the Daily Mirror snap up national newspaper titles the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday and three celebrity magazines OK!, New! and Star. - Telegraph
US close
Thursday's batch of Federal Reserve speakers was not especially 'hawkish', but the Bank of England's unexpected take on the outlook for interest rates rekindled some of the market's concerns over inflation and where rates may be headed - even in the medium-term.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 4.15% at 23,860.46, the S&P 500 fell 3.75% to 2,581.00, and the Nasdaq 100 lost 4.19% to settle at 6,306.10.
Stocks initially started the day with a slight bid in the wake of the latest set of initial jobless claims, but that quickly evaporated.
As expected, the UK's Monetary Policy Committee kept all its main policy settings unchanged, but according to analysts rate-setters may have opened the door to a hike in the bank rate for as soon as its meeting in May.
“Governor Carney said the BoE needed to hike earlier and more than was priced,” said analysts at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch.
“So we now expect a 25bp bank rate hike in May and another in February 2019.”
The analysts did caveat that such a scenario was “highly conditional”, however, adding that if Brexit transition talks dragged past March or PMIs remained where they are, the would have to reconsider.