JD Sports LFL sales grow, BT reports small rise in adjusted annual core earnings

London pre-open

The FTSE 100 was being called to open 116.8 points lower ahead of the bell on Thursday after closing out the previous session 1.44% higher at 7,347.66.

Stocks to watch

Retailer JD Sports said on Thursday that like-for-like sales were more than 5% higher year-on-year, driven by both the "strength and breadth" of its brand relationships and category offerings.

The FTSE 100-listed firm believes that headline pre-tax profits for the year ending 28 January 2023 will at least be equal to that for the year ended 29 January 2022, which it expects to be approximately £940.0m.

UK telecoms and broadcasting group BT on Thursday reported a small rise in adjusted annual core earnings on Thursday despite seeing full-year revenues fall 2%.

BT posted adjusted earnings of £7.5bn, up 2% even as revenues fell to £20.84bn. It also unveiled a new 50-50 joint venture with Warner Brothers Discovery under which it will transfer the operating businesses of BT Sport to the US broadcaster.

Newspaper round-up

Client meetings and emails could be picked up alongside a pint of milk and a box of eggs under a new deal between Tesco and flexible office operator IWG. From later this month, the owner of office operator Regus is to test out a 3,800 square foot flexible working area within Tesco's New Malden supermarket, with room for 12 private desks, 30 co-working spaces and a meeting room. - Guardian

Chinese taxi app Didi has told staff it has put plans for major international expansions on hold until at least 2025 and cut half its UK employees amid pressure from Beijing on one of its most prominent tech companies. Didi Chuxing has been on the back foot since last summer when the Cyberspace Administration of China, a powerful regulator, banned the country's dominant ride-hailing company from listing its app on mobile app stores in the country. - Guardian

Saudi Aramco has overtaken Apple as the world's most valuable company after oil prices surged and inflation hammered technology stocks. Aramco traded near its highest level on record on Wednesday, reaching a market capitalisation of about $2.4trn and surpassing that of Apple for the first time since 2020. - Telegraph

BlackRock has warned it will vote against most shareholder green activism this year for being too extreme, in a significant u-turn by the world's biggest money manager. The company said it was concerned about proposals to stop financing fossil fuel companies, including forcing them to decommission assets and setting absolute targets for reducing emissions in their supply chains. - Telegraph

The administrators to Debenhams have made £5.3m in fees in the two years since the department store chain filed for insolvency. FRP Advisory was appointed to Debenhams in April 2020 after the retailer went bankrupt for a second time, shortly after lockdowns forced the closure of its stores. It oversaw the sale of the 200-year-old department store's brand and website to Boohoo for £55.0m last January. - The Times

US close

Wall Street indices reversed earlier gains to close firmly in the red on Wednesday after fresh data revealed that growth in the cost of living in the US dipped in April, but not by as much as had been expected.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.02% at 31,834.11, while the S&P 500 lost 1.65% to 3,935.18 and the Nasdaq Composite tumbled 3.18% to 11,364.24.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com