Markets Overview:

UK 100 is called to open -25 points this morning at 6693.  Calls for a negative open this morning come after a cautionary speech from Boris Johnson overnight that the public should not get over-confident as the reopening of schools is likely to have an impact on infection rates and so could affect his ‘roadmap’ for lifting restrictions.  Stateside yesterday saw The Dow Jones finishing up by 306 points or 1% to a record high of 31,802.44, but the broader S&P 500 closing down 0.5% and the Nasdaq tumbling another 2.4% to almost a three-month low.  In Asia, The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong gained 0.28% while the Shanghai Composite in China dipped 1.53%.  In Japan, the Nikkei 225 rose 0.99% but South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.67%.

Company News & Broker Comments:

Company News:

DFS Furniture expects their FY pretax profit to be £105m as their H1 pretax profit surges to £72.1m (from £15.9m previously).

Domino's Pizza Group reports FY profit after tax of £39.7m as they confirmed a 2020 final dividend of 9.1p per share, up from 5.56p in 2019. Their trading in current FY started strongly with exceptional trading over the New Year period as they recorded their highest ever sales week. The delivery business continues to perform well and collection remains at around 60% of 2019 levels.

Gamesys reports that their 2020 revenue increased 75% to £727.7m (from £415.1m in 2019).

ITV reported a 21% drop in FY adjusted earnings, beating analyst expectations after advertising demand rebounded at the end of the year. They have said that although the market remained challenging, the trend was positive. They reported adjusted group earnings of £573m on total external revenue of £2.78bn (down 16%).

IWG swings to a pretax loss in 2020 of £620.1m (2019: £55m profit).

TP ICAP has halved its dividend citing a one-off reduction and said Q1 revenue might be lower compared to 2020 due to easing market activity. Their adjusted pretax profit fell 3% to £223m for FY 2020, whilst their reported profit jumped 39%.

Standard Life Aberdeen reports that its adjusted FY profits fell 16.6% to £487m (above market expectations of £408m) as it reconfigures its global operations.

WH Smith lowers their monthly cash burn forecast to £12m from £17m.

Broker Comments:

JP Morgan Upgrades Ultra Electronics to Overweight from Neutral (3 Buys / 4 Holds / 0 Sells)

Societe Generale Downgrades Pearson to Hold from Buy (3 Buys / 6 holds / 5 Sells)

Reporting Today:

Gamesys Group

ITV

M&G

Standard Life Aberdeen

Ultra Electronics Holdings

Vectura Group

Reporting Tomorrow:

Balfour Beatty

CLS Holdings

Cairn Enegy**

Hill & Smith Holdings

Ibstock

Informa**

Just Eat Takeaway

Legal & General Group

National Express Group

Quilter

Spirax-Sarco Engineering

TP ICAP**

John Wood Group**

In Focus Today:

EU Gross Domestic Product

UK BRC Like-For-Like Retail Sales

German Trade Balance

This Week's Ex Dividends:

UK 100:

Persimmon

Evraz

HSBC Holdings

UK 250:

St. Modwen Properties

Micro Focus International

JPMorgan Emerging Markets Invest Trust

Law Debenture Corporation

Apax Global Alpha

BMO Commercial Property Trust

Alliance Trust

LondonMetric Property

Assura

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