Weekly review

The FTSE 100 ended the week 1.39 points lower, closing at 7,121.88 on Friday.

Equity view

Polymer manufacturer Victrex on Friday said full-year results could be at the upper end of market expectations as it reported a rise in third quarter revenue. Group revenue for the three months to June 30 rose 37% year on year to £80.7m with sales volume up 49% to 1,202 tonnes.

Real estate investment company Land Securities declared a first-quarter dividend of 7.0p per ordinary share on Friday, paid entirely as a property income distribution. Land Securities' dividend announcement came as the group revealed it had made "good progress" on rent collection for the June quarter, with 81% of net rent due on 24 June paid on 7 July - collection day ten.

Manufacturing group Senior said on Friday that trading in the six months ended 30 June had been ahead of management expectations. Senior stated sales were expected to be "modestly ahead of expectations" in its aerospace unit but still around 21% lower year-on-year on a constant currency basis, while sales in its flexonics wing were projected to be in line with expectations, with a growth of around 6% on the prior year.

Derwent London reported higher rent collection rates for the June quarter on Friday, than for the previous four quarters at an equivalent time. The FTSE 250 company said that to date, it had received 93% of its June quarter day office rents.

B&M European Value Retail said it made a strong start to the year as it reported first-quarter UK like-for-like sales up by more than a fifth compared with pre-pandemic levels. Revenue at core B&M UK stores open a year or more increased 21.3% to £1.02bn in the 13 weeks to 26 June from two years before. Like-for-like sales fell 4.4% from a year earlier.

Housebuilder Persimmon is accelerating a capital return to shareholders as strong first-half trading generated increased revenue of £1.84bn. The figure for the six months to June 30 compares with £1.19bn last year as the Covid-19 pandemic brought building sites to a halt. Persimmon’s forward order book was £1.82bn, compared with £1.86bn last year and £1.62bn in 2019 before the crisis struck.

AstraZeneca on Thursday said its experimental drug tezepelumab had been given a priority review by the US Food and Drug Administration for potential approval as a treatment for asthma. The medicine, developed in conjunction with US-based Amgen, showed in trials it can reduce asthma attacks in patients with severe and uncontrolled forms of the respiratory condition.

Entain increased its guidance for full-year earnings after a strong performance from the gambling group in the first half. Total net gaming revenue rose 11% in the six months to the end of June from a year earlier and 42% in the second quarter as markets reopened from pandemic restrictions.

Royal Dutch Shell is to boost shareholder returns following a strong second quarter, the oil major announced on Wednesday. The Anglo-Dutch firm said that as a result of "strong operational and financial delivery", coupled with an improved macroeconomic outlook, it would now move to the next phase of its capital allocation framework and increase total shareholder distributions to within the range of 20% to 30% of cash flow from operations, subject to board approval.

Countryside Properties said on Wednesday that following a strategic review, it will now focus all of its resources on the Partnerships business "to maximise shareholder value", as it announced a share repurchase programme. As part of the plan, a new Partnerships region will be established to serve the Home Counties. Some of the current Housebuilding division sites, and certain sites in the strategic land bank, have been identified as fitting the mixed-tenure Partnerships model and will be used by this new Partnerships region, Countryside said.

Pub chain Wetherspoons said on Wednesday that it still expects to make a full-year loss as like-for-like sales have continued to fall despite easing Covid-19 restrictions. Between 12 April and 16 May, when only outdoor trading was permitted and around 500 pubs were open out of a total 860, like-for-like bar and food sales were down 49%. LFL sales are in comparison with the pre-pandemic levels in 2019.

Renishaw has abandoned plans for a potential sale, the specialist engineering group said on Wednesday. The FTSE 250 firm put itself up for sale in March after its founders - executive chairman David McMurtry and non-executive deputy chairman John Deer - said they wanted to sell their stakes. The two men, who are in their 80s, control 53% of the group.

HydrogenOne Capital Growth will become the first London-listed investment fund focused on clean hydrogen if its plans to float succeed. The firm's aim is to raise £250m via a placing, an offer for subscription and an intermediary offer. Those funds would in turn be used to target a diversified portfolio of hydrogen assets out of what the company said was an investable universe of approximately $90bn.

Venture capital outfit Forward Partners announced its intention to float on AIM in order to continue growing its business. The firm's focus is on high-growth potential UK-based businesses that leverage artificial intelligence with marketplace and eCommerce technology.

AstraZeneca said on Tuesday that its $39bn proposed acquisition of US drug developer Alexion has been cleared by the European Commission. This follows clearance in the US, Japan and other countries globally, although regulatory clearance in the UK is pending and remains a requirement to complete the deal.

Ocado's first-half loss narrowed as the online grocer's retail revenue rose during further Covid-19 restrictions in the UK. The pretax loss for the six months to the end of May was £23.6m compared with £40.6m a year earlier as group revenue rose 21.4% to £1.32bn.

Waste management company Biffa said its acquisition of Viridor’s collections business and some of its recycling assets should complete at the end of August after the Competition and Markets Authority said it had no further questions about the deal. Biffa announced in May that it had agreed to buy the assets from Viridor for around £126m in cash.

UK defence contractor Ultra Electronics said underlying first-half trading had been ahead of expectations. In a trading update for the six months to July 2, the company said its order book continued to grow and was significantly ahead of last year on higher demand.

Diversified Energy announced the conditional acquisition of certain Cotton Valley and Haynesville upstream assets and related facilities in the US states of Louisiana and Texas on Monday, from Tanos Energy Holdings III. The FTSE 250 company said that at the same time, Oaktree Capital Management would co-invest in the acquisition under the joint participation agreement it announced in October.

Data and document management company Restore confirmed it would reinstate its progressive dividend and pay an interim dividend for the 2021 financial year on Monday, given its strong trading through the first half. The AIM-traded firm said trading had continued to strengthen through the period, with second quarter performance ahead of its previous expectations.

Economic news

UK economic growth slowed more than expected in May, according to figures released on Friday by the Office for National Statistics. Economic growth slowed to 0.8% from a revised 2% in April, coming in well below expectations for 1.5% growth. April’s figure was revised down from 2.3%.

Airlines and an airport operator have launched legal action against the UK government, it emerged on Friday, around the decision-making used by Westminster in coming up with rules governing overseas travel. Manchester Airports Group (MAG), which owns East Midlands, London Stansted and Manchester airports, is leading the complaint, with support from easyJet, British Airways owner IAG, Ryanair and TUI.

The financial services sector reported a surge in business in the last quarter, an industry survey showed on Thursday, as the economic recovery gathered pace. According to the latest CBI/PwC financial services survey, business volumes grew at their fastest rate since June 2017 over the three months to June, a net balance of 40% of respondents said, compared to -3% in the first quarter.

Visits to UK shops flatlined in June as restrictions remained largely unchanged from the month before, an industry survey showed. Retail footfall improved by 0.1 percentage point in June from May, leaving activity 27.6% lower than two years earlier, the British Retail Consortium said.

UK house prices have dipped for the first time this year, industry data showed on Wednesday, as the stamp duty holiday started to wind down. According to the latest Halifax House Price Index, the average UK house price eased 0.5% in June, the first monthly decline since January. On an annual basis, house price inflation was ahead 8.8%, although that was down on May’s 14-year high of 9.6%.

Heathrow announced on Wednesday that it will provide fast-track lanes for fully inoculated arrivals to the UK. The decision comes as part of the move from the airline industry to step up pressure on ministers to open quarantine-free travel to amber destinations (in the traffic light colour system set by the government).

Footfall across UK retail destinations improved markedly at the start of June before easing back after the government announced that 'freedom day' would be postponed, the results of a closely-followed survey revealed. According to Springboard, footfall improved last month, falling by 22.2% versus the same month of 2019, versus -27.5% in May.

The number of new properties coming to market continued to fall in June, industry research showed on Thursday, as demand outstripped faltering supply. According to the latest residential market survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the net balance of new property listings was -34% in June, a further decline on May’s -24%. It is the third consecutive fall in the number of new properties coming to market.

New orders fuelled the fastest rise in UK construction activity for 24 years but the sector faces rising costs, a survey showed. The IHS Markit/CIPS purchasing managers' index rose to 66.3 in June from 64.2 a month earlier - the biggest rise since June 1997 - as the sector continued to emerge from the Covid-19 crisis.

Barclays clients and Binance spokespeople have expressed their dissatisfaction through comments on social networks, the former, and statements to specialized media, the latter, after the British banking giant's ban of its customers' credit card payments on the crypto exchange. The bank has taken advantage of the notice of the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority (FCA for its acronym in English) of June 26 on Binance.

International events

A third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech will likely significantly boost antibody levels in patients against the so-called Delta variant of the virus. After the close of US markets on Thursday, the two companies said initial data from a booster trial showed that a third dose of BNT 162b2 was safe and increased neutralising antibodies five to 10-fold against wild-type Covid-19 and the Beta variant, the latter of which was first discovered in South Africa.

The US government is poised to add over 10 additional Chinese companies to its economic blacklist on grounds of human rights abuses in the region of Xinjiang. The new sanctions could be made official as early as Friday, two sources told Reuters. One of the sources said the department plans to add 14 Chinese companies to the Entity List.

The cryptocurrency market remains in the red this Friday, after a new wave of sales that this Thursday made bitcoin lose its short-term support at $ 34,000. After marking a July low of $ 32,500, the creation of Satoshi Nakamoto tries to consolidate around $ 33,000, but everything suggests that it will end up touching $30,000, the lower part of the range in which the digital asset has been moving in the last weeks.

People that are fully vaccinated with Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine do not yet require a so-called 'booster', America's top drug and health officials said. Overnight, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said: People who are fully vaccinated are protected from severe disease and death, including from the variants currently circulating in the country such as Delta."

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, known to be a staunch advocate of cryptocurrencies, called bitcoin "the most amazing mathematical miracle" during the Jalisco Talent Land Digital 2021 event, reports Mexico's 'El Sol' newspaper. In addition, he considered that the emblematic cryptocurrency is more valuable than gold, since the precious metal "has to be looked for and is limited." Although the 70-year-old tech entrepreneur does not personally invest in the leading cryptocurrency, he is convinced that it has a place in the future.

US central bankers began a discussion on when to start restricting their extraordinary policy support when they last met, the minutes of their gathering revealed. Yet they did not want to signal that a change in policy was near. Instead, their intention appeared to be to prepare in case they needed to move more quickly.

Olympic organisers are set to ban all spectators from sporting events as Japan prepares to declare a state of emergency for Tokyo that will last throughout the games. In a move to curb coronavirus infections, the Asahi daily said on Thursday that organisers still had to reach a final decision in talks with key parties.

Weekly US jobless claims data continued to point towards an improving jobs picture. According to the US Department of Labor, over the week ending on 3 July, initial unemployment claims edged up by 2,000 to reach 373,000.

The European Central Bank revised its inflation target higher on Thursday, in the largest revamp of its policy strategy since 2003. Instead of aiming for consumer price inflation of close to but below 2.0% over the medium-term, it would now attempt to set policy so that prices rose by 2.0% over the medium-term.

France warned its nationals from travelling to Portugal and Spain on Thursday in what some observers thought was yet another sign that the summer 2021 season was lost. French European Affairs Minister, Clement Beaune, issued a "message of caution", recommending those who had yet to book a vacation to look for other destinations or stay at home.