Vedanta earnings rise in first half, Galliford Try reports positive trading conditions
London open
The FTSE 100 is expected to open seven points higher on Friday, having closed down 0.61% at 7,484.10 on Thursday.
Stocks to watch
Vedanta Resources reported revenue growth of 39% year-on-year in its first half on Friday, to $6.8bn, while EBITDA was ahead 37% to $1.7bn, which the board said was primarily due to higher volumes and strong commodity prices. The FTSE 250 firm said its adjusted EBITDA margin for the six months to 30 September was 34%, up from 33% a year ago.
Student accommodation developer and manager Unite Group has exchanged contracts to acquire a development site in Leeds on a subject-to-planning basis, it announced on Friday. The FTSE 250 company said the site, located in the city centre near to the University of Leeds and Leeds Beckett University, will provide a home for more than 1,000 students. It said he total development cost was expected to be around £80m, and would be funded from internally generated sources.
Galliford Try said it continues to see good market conditions across its housebuilding, regeneration and construction businesses.
Newspaper round-up
British and European business leaders are to demand an urgent breakthrough on Brexit from Theresa May in order to salvage a transition deal from the stalled negotiations in Brussels. The CBI and counterparts from France, Germany and Italy will meet the prime minister at Downing Street on Monday to warn that taking much longer to negotiate a transition agreement could render it useless because companies will soon be forced to assume the worst about the terms of Britain’s departure from the EU. – Guardian
Investigators have raided the offices of ticket resale companies StubHub and Viagogo as part of a probe into suspected breaches of consumer law in the “secondary ticketing” industry, the Guardian has learned. Officials from the Competition and Markets Authority seized information about the companies’ relationship with prominent ticket touts, who harvest tickets for in-demand events and sell them via the two sites. - Guardian
Equifax on Thursday reported a lower third-quarter profit as costs from the credit reporting bureau's recently disclosed data breach that exposed deeply sensitive information on 145.5 million people began to mount. Net income attributable to Equifax fell to $96.3m (£73m), or 79 cents per diluted share, from $132.8m, or $1.09 per diluted share, a year earlier. – Telegraph
National Grid is training the focus of its multi-billion pound investment effort on the US as political scrutiny in the UK mounts. The FTSE 100 operator of Britain’s pipes and wires is pouring more than half of its spending into projects in the North East of the US where regulators are encouraging billions of dollars in low carbon investments. – Telegraph
One of Britain’s most senior former civil servants has accused the government of pursuing a nakedly commercial foreign policy after $2 billion in loan guarantees were granted to Saudi Aramco, the oil group considering a shares listing in London. Lord Macpherson of Earl’s Court, permanent secretary to the Treasury from 2005 to 2016, tweeted: “Her Majesty’s Government guaranteeing a loan to Aramco would be a further lurch in descent to mercantilism. Mr Gladstone will be turning in his grave.” – The Times
Britain’s economy will trail the eurozone for each of the coming three years as its growth falls to the bottom of the European Union’s 28 members, according to official forecasts from Brussels. The single currency bloc has not grown faster than the UK since 2011 but is now expected to outpace it until at least 2019, after the European Commission downgraded Britain and upgraded the eurozone in its latest outlook. – The Times
US close
US markets finished lower on Thursday as investors dealt with more earnings news and details on the Senate’s tax bill.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 0.43% at 23,461.94, the S&P 500 was down 0.38% at 2,584.62, and the Nasdaq 100 was 0.53% softer at 6,312.21.
Senate Republicans took the wraps off their tax plan on Thursday, which has some slight differences to the one currently making its way through the House of Representatives.
Under the plan, corporate tax would be slashed to 20% from the current 35%, although it’s understood that would be delayed until 2019, rather than coming into effect next year as it would under the House bill.
It would keep the number of individual tax brackets at seven - House Republicans want four - while cutting the 15% tax bracket to 12%, and shaving the top rate slightly to 38.5%.
In keeping with the House plan, Senate republicans want to almost-double the standard deduction to $12,000 and $24,000 for individuals and married couples respectively, while removing federal deductions for state and local taxes.