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Fevertree shares fall on margin concerns
Thursday 16 Jul 2020Shares in upmarket mixer supplier Fevertree Drinks ( FEVR:AIM ) fell flat on 14 July as investors focused on cautious comments regarding the firm’s gross margin instead of its sales growth in its latest trading update. Despite positive momentum in spirits and mixers in UK and US supermarket and...
Global company debt could jump by $1 trillion in 2020
Thursday 16 Jul 2020Global corporate net debt could jump by as much as $1 trillion this year as companies grapple with the massive impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The stark warning comes from the Janus Henderson Corporate Debt Index, which studies the long-term borrowing trends of companies from around the world. The...
Halma’s record profit streak set to end
Thursday 16 Jul 2020Health, safety and environmental electronics equipment designer Halma ( HLMA ) says a 17-year track record of consecutive annual revenue and profit growth won’t extend into next year. The downgrade – with management suggesting pre-tax profit will drop between 5% and 10% in the financial year to 31...
B&M shares hit new record high as analysts upgrade forecasts
Thursday 16 Jul 2020Shares in B&M European Value Retail ( BME ) have just hit a new record high of 439.9p following a materially better than expected first quarter that included a welcome uptick in June trading. The update led analysts to upgrade their earnings forecasts for the year, acting as a share price...
Cycling boom isn't enough to drive up Halfords’ shares
Thursday 09 Jul 2020SHARES IN Car parts-to-bicycles retailer Halfords ( HFD ) failed to pedal higher as we’d hoped despite the delivery of full year profit (7 Jul) at the upper end of previous guidance and the news recent trading is materially better than that anticipated at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak. Bike...
Housebuilders’ shares in demand thanks to stamp duty boost
Thursday 09 Jul 2020There was welcome news for housebuilders in chancellor Rishi Sunak’s mini-Budget (8 Jul) as he raised the stamp duty threshold on properties from £125,000 to £500,000 until 31 March 2021. This move should boost the property market and benefit housebuilders, estate agents, DIY retailers and building...
Dividend opportunities continue to shrink for investors
Thursday 09 Jul 2020The number of FTSE 100 companies which have raised their dividends in each of the last 10 years fell from 25 at the start of the year to just 14 at the end of June, according to analysis by AJ Bell. Such has been the damage to company balance sheets during the pandemic that dividend payments by...
As shares break new records what is the market discounting?
Thursday 09 Jul 2020The coronavirus crisis has seemingly been absorbed by the market in stages as the scale of the economic damage has become apparent. According to data analysed by Bank of America the broad S&P 500 index took only 22 days to fall by 30% from its record high, the fastest rate in history. The...
ESG-principled investors abandon Boohoo
Thursday 09 Jul 2020Shares in online fashion purveyor Boohoo ( BOO:AIM ) have plunged 45% from recent record highs to 230p following allegations of modern day slavery in supplier factories in Leicester. The negative backlash suggests that ESG-principled investors are turning their back on the company and that the...
Work from home boom spawns specialist ETF
Thursday 02 Jul 2020As working from home takes on a life of its own, the trend has now become an investment strategy after the launch of a specialist exchange-traded fund in the US. The Direxion Work From Home ETF will track the Solactive Remote Work Index, a 40 stock index of work from home-friendly product and...