Business
Wall Street’s AI-fuelled momentum continues to put London in the shade amid another lacklustre performance by the FTSE 100 index.
Semiconductor giant Nvidia added $277 billion (£218.7 billion) to its market value last night, while the S&P 500 index rose 2% to a fresh all-time high.
Today’s highlights in London include results by Standard Chartered, with the Asia-focused lender’s shares higher following the 2023 performance.
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Last week Donald Trump took a supposedly massive blow to his reputation when a New York judge said he had been overstating the value of his real estate empire to secure loans from banks.
Judge Arthur Engoron ordered penalties of $355 million and barred the would-be President from running any New York company for three years.
It has become necessary when saying anything in defence of Trump to point out that he is otherwise completely awful. So there you go – he’s awful, on his worst days looking like a menace to nearly all of us.
A balanced look at what he is supposed to have done on this occasion however provokes laughter.
He exaggerated the value of his assets in order to get a property loan, a mortgage basically.
Since he was borrowing from large Wall Street banks, and since they all got repaid, it is very hard to see who the victim is here.
I suppose you could say it is the otherwise entirely honest member of the New York construction trade who might now be owner of what is called Trump Tower.
But that assumes this person even exists in an industry known for producing massive bullshitters of which Trump is merely the most visibly successful.
As if the rest of the property and construction industries are clean as a whistle. No sign of dodgy anything in either sector.
Same with banks. They’ve never been caught turning a blind eye to wrongdoing of any kind. It just never happens.
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The owner of British Airways is set to report soaring sales last year, shrugging off fears that the UK’s recent recession has dented demand for holidays.
International Airlines Group (IAG), which also owns airlines Iberia, Vueling and Aer Lingus, will publish its financial results for 2023 on Thursday.
The aviation giant is expected to report sales totalling just shy of 30 billion euros (£25 billion), a record yearly amount for the group and more than a quarter higher than the prior year.
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The UK privacy and data protection watchdog has ordered Serco Leisure to stop using facial recognition technology to monitor the attendance of leisure centre employees.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) found that Serco Leisure and community leisure trusts were unlawfully processing the biometric data of more than 2,000 employees at 38 leisure facilities across the UK.
It said facial recognition and fingerprint scanning were used to monitor workers’ attendance and then the subsequent payment for their time.
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UK airports are being put at an “enormous disadvantage” because of air passenger duty (APD), Ryanair has claimed.
Chief commercial officer Jason McGuinness said many airports outside London are being “hamstrung” because the tax limits growth in flight capacity.
Passengers with economy tickets for UK departures are charged APD at a rate of £6.50 for domestic flights and £13 for short-haul trips.
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Take a look at our latest market snapshot with shares flat
Lloyds has become the first UK bank to set aside hundreds of millions of pounds in case it has to compensate car finance customers, amid a major investigation into whether people overpaid on their loans.
The banking group revealed a provision worth £450 million to cover potential costs relating to the issue.
The PA news agency looks at what is being investigated and what could happen next for banks and consumers.
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The FTSE 100 index is 9.37 points higher at 7693.86, in sharp contrast to the US after the S&P 500’s earlier surge of 2% to a fresh all-time high.
The trigger for the Wall Street buying was Nvidia results, with the semiconductor giant worth almost $2 trillion after yesterday’s record $277 billion (£218.7 billion) jump in valuation.
In London, Rolls-Royce followed its 8% results-day advance by falling 3.9p to 352.9p as the FTSE 100’s best performer of the past year succumbed to a bout of profit taking. Advertising group WPP also remained under pressure, falling 22.6p to 708p.
Mining and banking stocks gave some support in the FTSE 100 as Anglo American rose 20.6p to 1790.4p and HSBC put back 8.5p to 599p after their results earlier in the week.
The FTSE 250 retreated 68.07 points to 19,195.43, with Domino’s Pizza UK under pressure after Barclays cut its target price to 400p. Shares fell 12.8p to 354.4p.
Among small-caps, Yu Group surged another 12% or 144p to 1304p after the supplier of electricity, gas and water to business customers struck a new trading agreement with Shell Energy.
Nottingham-based Yu, which has doubled in value after a series of profit upgrades in the past year, said the new hedging facility will free up over £50 million of cash currently posted as collateral.
Hornby shares jumped by a third today after it emerged that Sports Direct owner Frasers had a near-9% stake in the model trains-to-planes firm.
The investment by the FTSE 100 group builds on a relationship that already sees Hornby products sold in Frasers’ 320 Game stores and concessions.
Hornby boss Olly Raeburn said: “We look forward to exploring commercial opportunities in working together to unlock the full potential of Hornby’s much loved brands.”
Frasers also has stakes in a number of other UK retailers, including Currys, AO World and ASOS.
Chief financial officer Chris Wootton said: “Frasers Group has a vision to build the planet’s most admired and compelling brand ecosystem.
“Hornby’s portfolio of unique heritage brands are already part of GAME’s product offer and we look forward to exploring opportunities to further leverage our scale in retail logistics and distribution.”
Hornby shares rose 7.25p to 28.25p.
In a thread on X, Panmure Gordon economist Simon French explains the “conflicting” data on UK prices, and we he believes the Bank of England should hold interest rates.
Click to read the full thread.
A lot of conflicting UK price data emerging recently that presents a real challenge for the BoE to interpret. Some of the data points in a shortish 🧵… and why, on balance, I would hold Bank rate steady amidst these conflicting signals. The value in waiting seems high (1/n)
LEEDS Building Society enjoyed another strong year, though warned it would cut mortgage lending on holiday homes.
The society made profit of £181 million, down from £220 million a year ago, but still the second best in its 149-year history.
Society membership increased by 10% to a record high of 919,000, with 122,000 new savings members and 35,000 new mortgage members.
Mortgage lending was £4.4 billion, down from £5 billion a year ago.
The society has worked with North Norfolk District Council and North Yorkshire Council to set up a 12-month trial during which it will stop new loans for holiday let homes. Each authority has identified where housing pressures are most serious and holiday let lending will be restricted in those areas from the end of March.
CEO Richard Fearon said: “In some areas holiday lets have grown to have a significant stranglehold on the pipeline of homes available for local people to live in. Our decision adds to the arsenal of options available to local authorities to balance local housing needs with economic benefits in a way which leaves power in the hands of the local authorities.
“We will learn through the trial how effective this measure can be in increasing the supply of residential homes and gain greater insight on steps that can make a positive difference.”
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