Hargreaves Lansdown posts full-year growth, Ocado maintains annual guidance

Stocks to watch

Hargreaves Lansdown reported a net new business gain of £4.8bn and an 8% increase in assets under administration to £134bn in its results for the year ended 30 June. The FTSE 100 company reported a rise of 67,000 active clients, bringing the total to 1,804,000. Furthermore, profit before tax surged by 50% to £402.7m, with the ordinary dividend increasing by 4.5% to 41.5p per share.

Online grocer and technology company Ocado maintained annual guidance after a 7.2% rise in third-quarter retail revenues. The company, 50% owned by Marks & Spencer, said retail sales came in at £569.6m from £531m a year earlier, with a return to positive volume growth in the last month of the quarter. Active customers reached 961,000, up 1.5% year-on-year. The number of mature customers - defined as those who have made a fifth shop - grew 6.6%.

Pharmaceutical giant GSK has announced that its Apretude drug for HIV prevention has received approval from the European Commission. ViiV Healthcare, a specialist HIV company co-owned by GSK, Pfizer and Shionogi (GSK is the majority shareholder), showed in a clinical trial that Apretude demonstrated "superior efficacy" to the standard oral PrEP option in reducing the risk of acquiring HIV, which affects 100,000 newly diagnosed people each year in Europe.

Newspaper round-up

Hopes for the mainstream adoption of electric cars have been punctured by figures revealing a fall of more than 11 per cent in the sale of zero-emission vehicles to private buyers. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has said that motorists are holding back from the switch because of continued uncertainty about whether a government ban on petrol and diesel cars will be enforced, the cost of electric vehicles, the cutting of financial incentives, and fears about the lack of a public recharging network. - The Times

Farmers are being forced to leave food “rotting in the field” because they can’t get a fair deal from supermarkets, a group of celebrity chefs including Rick Stein and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has warned. In an open letter, farmers, food producers and celebrities accuse Britain’s biggest supermarkets of “imbalanced, short term and wasteful” practices that have left British farmers scrambling to stay afloat. - Telegraph

Northern leaders have called on Downing Street to honour promises to build the HS2 high-speed rail line, as ministers repeatedly refused to confirm to MPs whether it would run to Manchester. Doubts over the future of the multibillion-pound HS2 project are growing after the junior transport minister Richard Holden dodged multiple questions in the Commons. - Guardian

Oil prices could soon top $100 a barrel, analysts have warned, as a steep rally continues on the back of Saudi Arabian and Russian production curbs. The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose by almost 1 per cent to close in on $95 per barrel yesterday, its highest since November. - The Times

A GB News programme hosted by two married Conservative MPs broke impartiality rules by failing to represent “an appropriately wide range”, Ofcom has ruled. The TV channel was found to be in breach of the broadcasting code for the third time this year over a show featuring an interview with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt. Ofcom said Esther McVey and Philip Davies, two sitting Conservatives who present a Saturday morning show, failed to properly scrutinise the Chancellor when he was interviewed ahead of the Budget in March. - Telegraph

One day after the largest climate march since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, hundreds of climate activists blockaded the Federal Reserve Bank in New York to call for an end to funding for coal, oil and gas, with police making scores of arrests. “Fossil fuel companies … wouldn’t be able to operate without money, and that money is coming primarily from Wall Street,” Alicé Nascimento, environmental campaigns director at New York Communities for Change, said hours before she was arrested. - Guardian

US close

US stocks recorded modest gains on Monday, with major indices slightly increasing.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.02% to close at 34,624.30, while the S&P 500 rose by 0.07% to settle at 4,453.53.

Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite showed a fractional gain of 0.01%, ending the day at 13,710.24.

Wall Street faced some headwinds from burgeoning bond yields and escalating oil prices, alongside investor caution ahead of the Federal Reserve policy meeting slated for later in the week.

On the currency front, the dollar was last down 0.01% against sterling, trading at 80.74p, while it remained stable against the euro at 93.53 euro cents.