Capita trading in line in third quarter, AstraZeneca asthma trial sees success
London open
The FTSE 100 is expected to open eight points lower on Tuesday, having closed up 4.67% on Monday at 6,186.29.
Stocks to watch
Outsourcing contractor Capita said third quarter trading was in line with expectations as it delivered a small rise in core profit. The company on Tuesday said contract losses and Covid-19 hit revenue, which fell to £803m from £902m. Adjusted core earnings rose to £115m from £111m. “Our markets continue to experience a high level of uncertainty primarily as a consequence of the ongoing and unknown future impact of Covid-19. However, trading has remained in line with our expectations, and we continue to expect to comply with our debt covenants at 31 December 2020,” the company said in a trading statement. Capita added that it continued to make progress to strengthen the balance sheet with the disposal of non-core assets, including the proposed sale of its education software business.
AstraZeneca, alongside its partner Amgen, announced positive results from the ‘NAVIGATOR’ phase 3 trial for the potential new medicine ‘tezepelumab’ in patients with severe, uncontrolled asthma on Tuesday. The FTSE 100 pharmaceuticals giant said the trial met its primary endpoint, with tezepelumab added to standard-of-care demonstrating a “statistically significant and clinically meaningful” reduction in the annualised asthma exacerbation rate over 52 weeks in the overall patient population, compared to placebo when added to standard-of-care.
Newspaper round-up
A million people in the UK are planning to give up being self-employed after seeing their earnings decimated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Ahead of official figures on Tuesday that are likely to show a further jump in unemployment, a report from the London School of Economics found that a two-decade long trend in favour of more people working for themselves was under threat. - Guardian
Supreme, the cult streetwear brand, is being sold to VF Corporation, the Denver-based parent company of Vans, The North Face and Timberland, in a deal valued at $2.1bn. Founded by James Jebbia, a UK-raised child actor turned skateboarder who created the brand at a small downtown New York store in 1989, Supreme has been at the forefront of a streetwear revolution that, in terms of marketing and exclusivity, has turned the fashion industry on its head. - Guardian
Ministers are poised to hand out up to £42bn of taxpayer cash to private contractors as part of a drive to massively expand testing in the fight against Covid. The mammoth sum, equivalent to the annual defence budget, includes a £22bn contract put out to tender last week by Public Health England and a £20bn deal already awarded by the NHS, official filings show. - Telegraph
Bookmakers have agreed to dip into their satchels to the tune of several million pounds to help horse racing to deal with the latest lockdown. The sport, hit by the loss of the 50 per cent of its revenue that comes from racegoers, has suffered from the closure of betting shops in England and Ireland. - The Times
Ocado is facing a second legal claim in as many months over allegations that it stole patents and technology from a Norwegian robotics company. Autostore, which makes automated storage and retrieval systems for warehouses, filed an entitlement claim yesterday with British intellectual property authorities that says it is the inventor and rightful owner of patents that have been filed by Ocado. - The Times
US close
Wall Street stocks turned in a mixed performance on Monday following some positive headlines surrounding Pfizer and BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine and Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 US presidential election.
At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 2.95% at 29,157.97 and the S&P 500 was 1.17% firmer at 3,550.50, while the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 1.53% weaker at 11,713.78.
The Dow Jones closed 834.57 points higher on Monday after Democratic candidate Joe Biden defeated incumbent president Donald Trump in the presidential race.
The former vice president won the election as his projected victory in Pennsylvania and Nevada pushed him well over the 270 electoral college votes required to take the White House.
Despite Trump refusing to concede the election and making plans to call for recounts in multiple states, stocks got a solid boost on news that Pfizer and BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine candidate had prevented more than 90% of infections in a study of tens of thousands of volunteers, paving the way for emergency use.