Drax to take £10m hit from unplanned outage, Shaftesbury snaps up six West End buildings
London open
The FTSE 100 is expected to open four points lower on Wednesday, having closed up 0.09% at 7,544.09 on Tuesday.
Stocks to watch
United Arab Emirates-focussed integrated healthcare provider NMC Health updated the market on Wednesday, reporting that operations during the second half have continued to perform in line with expectations. The FTSE 100 firm said that as a result, it remained comfortable with the full-year guidance provided for the 2017 full year, which was reiterated during the first half results conference call.
Following an unplanned outage on the rail unloading facilities at Drax Power Station, Drax Group confirmed on Wednesday that biomass deliveries are currently restricted and, in order to optimise available supplies, generation on the two renewable obligation certificate (ROC) units has been reduced. The FTSE 250 company said the two units would then be taken offline for a short period.
London property developer Shaftesbury has snapped up six buildings on Neal Street near Covent Garden for £24.6m. Adding to its 14.9 acre portfolio in London's West End, the FTSE 250 group acquired six buildings at the northern third of the popular shopping byway, with current contracted income of £0.6mn per year.
Micro Focus International said John Schultz had left its board and will be replaced by an independent non-executive director. The business software company said Schultz had stepped down immediately. After his recent appointment as chief legal officer at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) he needs to concentrate on his new job and Micro Focus requires a more independent director, Micro Focus said.
Newspaper round-up
Fears about the safety of bitcoin investments were heightened yesterday after a digital currency exchange in South Korea collapsed, saying that hackers had stolen a significant proportion of its assets. The suspected hack of the Youbit exchange, which resulted in the loss of 17 percent of its assets, was the second it has suffered this year. - The Times
MPs have written to Toys R Us demanding an explanation for why the struggling retailer handed a bumper pay increase to bosses despite falling sales and growing losses which is threatening its survival. - Telegraph
Tesco food standards inspectors unearthed a series of “major” process issues at a second 2 Sisters Food Group factory, on the same weekend that separate concerns prompted the closure of the UK’s largest chicken supplier’s West Bromwich site. - Guardian
A national shortage of delivery drivers means that Christmas shoppers may not receive their gift orders on time. Amazon appears to be the worst affected retailer. It uses Hermes, which also serves Debenhams, Zara, John Lewis, Tesco, Asda, and ASOS. The social media feeds of courier firms DPD and Yodel were also registering complaints. - Daily Mail
US close
Wall Street's main market gauges finished lower on Tuesday, led lower by the technology sector as investor confidence on the Republicans' ability to pass tax cut plans this week stagnated.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 0.15% at 24,754.75, the S&P 500 lost 0.32% to 2,681.47, and the Nasdaq 100 was 0.5% softer at 6,480.67.
On Monday, the Nasdaq, Dow Jones and S&P 500 all notched record highs again, with the Nasdaq crossing the 7,000 level for the first time in intraday trading as investors bet that the US tax reform bill would be passed this week after critics of the reforms, Marco Rubio and Bob Corker, said they would back the plans.
“Tax reform was one of the key initiatives that contributed to Donald Trump’s election victory last year as he vowed to revitalise a sluggish US economy,” said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda.
“While it may have taken longer to deliver than he expected, it would appear that Republicans determination to give Americans an early Christmas present has paid off, although there has been numerous debates about who actually stands to benefit most from the bill.”
On the economic front, the Commerce Department reported that America's current account deficit shrank by 19% over the three months to September, from $124.4bn to $100.6bn.
Housing starts jumped by 3.3% month-on-month to reach an annualised pace of 1.297m in November, ahead of consensus expectations for 1.250m, according to the Census Bureau, which was up from a downwardly revised pace of 1.256m for October.
New home sales for October had originally been pegged at 1.290m.