LONDON (Alliance News) - Stocks in London are set to rebound on Wednesday, with focus on the latest inflation data from the UK, while
Royal Bank of Scotland confirmed its first dividend payment since the financial crisis after reaching a final settlement with the US government.In other early UK company news,
Admiral saw a rise in interim profit,
Hikma said its half-year results exceeded expectations and thus lifted its annual guidance for two units, and
Balfour Beatty boosted its interim payout by a third.IG says futures indicate the FTSE 100 index of large-caps to open 15.46 points higher at 7,627.10 on Wednesday. The FTSE 100 index closed closed down 0.4%, or 30.81 points at 7,611.64 on Tuesday.In focus in the UK on Wednesday is the latest consumer price index reading for July, due at 0930 BST and seen edging up to an annual inflation rate of 2.5% from 2.4% in June. This comes after wage data on Tuesday showed a slowing of growth in average earnings, rising just 2.4% on year in the three months to June, from 2.5% the previous month."In general, we believe the inflation prints will be interesting to follow in H2 18, as we believe the Bank of England is too optimistic on the inflation outlook," said Aila Mih, analyst at Danske Bank. Danske Bank sees UK CPI inflation slowing to 2.3% in July.Sterling was quoted at USD1.2715 early Wednesday ahead of the CPI data, down from USD1.2736 at the London equities close on Tuesday.Drugmaker
GlaxoSmithKline said ViiV Healthcare - its HIV treatment joint venture - saw its Atlas study meet its primary endpoint.Phase 3 of the study - for a long-acting, injectable two-drug regimen for the treatment of HIV - showed long-acting cabotegravir and rilpivirine, injected once a month, had similar efficacy to a standard of care, daily, oral three-drug regimen at Week 48. The injectable treatment regimen met the primary endpoint for non-inferiority, Glaxo said. Overall safety, virologic response and drug resistance results for the injectable regimen were consistent with results from the phase II Latte and Latte-2 studies.Insurer
Admiral posted a rise in half-year profit and lifted its interim payout, with growth in underwriting profit and a improved combined ratio.Pretax profit rose 9% to GBP211 million in the first half of the year from GBP193 million a year prior, as net revenue also increased 9% to GBP600 million from GBP550 million. The company lifted its interim dividend 7% to 60.0p per share - representing an ordinary payout of 40.8p and a special dividend of 19.2p - from 56.0p last year.Underwriting profit grew to GBP93.4 million from GBP88.9 million, while the group's combined ratio improved to 87.4% from 90.0% last year. A score under 100% indicates underwriting profitability."The European insurers delivered overall profitability whilst growing the business by almost a fifth in a year. But that's not the only important milestone in the first half, which was characterised by substantial growth across almost all our businesses. Most importantly, the core UK car insurance business continues to grow," said Chief Executive David Stevens.The US Justice Department late Tuesday said
RBS will pay USD4.9 billion to settle civil claims for misleading investors in residential mortgage-backed securities prior to the financial crisis that began in 2008.This settlement had been agreed in principle back in May this year.RBS "routinely made misrepresentations to investors" who bought securities backed by risky mortgages and concealed their high risk of default, the Justice Department said. The activity cited by the department took place from 2005 to 2008.The penalty is the largest imposed on a single financial institution by the Justice Department for misconduct linked to the crisis.Ross McEwan, RBS chief executive, said in a statement that the state-backed lender is "pleased to have reached a final settlement" and the bank can now "focus our energy on serving our customers better and returning capital to our shareholders".As a result on Wednesday, RBS declared an interim dividend of 2p per share. The payout had been proposed at the time of the lender's interim results, earlier in August, but was conditional on a settlement with the DoJ.
Hochschild Mining said revenue over the first half grew to USD372.3 million from USD340.8 million, as pretax profit remained broadly flat, coming in at USD38.6 million from USD38.9 million last year. The gold miner boosted its interim payout by 42% to 1.965 cents, from 1.38 cents a year ago.There was "record" production of 138,427 gold equivalent ounces at Inmaculada in the period, while "encouraging" results were delivered at Arcata. San Jose drilling is set to restart in September after poor seasonal weather conditions.The company said it is on track to deliver attributable production target of 38.0 million silver equivalent ounces for 2018, with all-in sustaining costs to be in line with USD13.0 to USD13.4 per silver equivalent ounce."Precious metal prices are currently nearing the bottom of their recent trading range. However, Hochschild's operational performance combined with a strong balance sheet, exciting early results from our brownfield programme, a significant recent devaluation in the Argentine peso and no current hedges in place leave us in a beneficial position," said Hochschild.Support services and construction firm
Balfour Beatty said revenue for the first half fell to GBP3.84 billion from GBP4.20 billion, but pretax profit increased more than four-fold to GBP50 million from GBP12 million.While revenue fell, the company said, gross profit increased and overheads declined, resulting in improved profitability.Leo Quinn, chief executive, said: "All our businesses are now either achieving industry standard margins or on track to do so in the second half. The disciplines installed under Build to Last are also enabling us to increase the order book.""Given the strength of our balance sheet and the board's confidence that the group's full year earnings will meet expectations, we are raising the interim dividend by 33% and plan to repay the outstanding convertible bonds this year." The company raised its dividend to 1.6p from 1.2p.
Hikma Pharmaceuticals said revenue rose 11% over the first half of the year, to USD989 million, as pretax profit climbed to USD141 million from USD100 million.Chief Executive Siggi Olafsson said he was "pleased" with the performance, which exceeded expectations, allowing the company to raise its guidance for both the Injectables and Generics businesses for the full-year."The measures we have taken and investments we have made across the Group over the past year are delivering results, but we still have work to do. Our markets are competitive and we don't expect the same demand for some of our injectable products to continue into 2019," Olafsson noted.Hikma now expects Injectables revenue to be between USD775 million to USD825 million, with Generics revenue to be between USD600 million to USD650 million.At the time of its annual results, released in March 2018, the company said Injectables revenue was to be between USD750 million to USD800 million, and Generics between USD550 million to USD600 million.In the US on Tuesday, Wall Street ended higher, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average ending up 0.5%, the S&P 500 up 0.6% and Nasdaq Composite closing 0.7% higher.Turkey increased tariffs on US-made products ranging from cars to tobacco on Wednesday in the midst of a currency crisis and a diplomatic and trade spat with the US.The new measures, published in the official gazette, go into effect immediately and include a 140% hike in US-made alcoholic beverages and an increase of 120% on US cars.On Tuesday, Erdogan called for a boycott of US electronic goods."If they have iPhone, we have Samsung on the other side," Erdogan told members of his Justice and Development Party referring to the South Korean company, which is Apple's main competitor in the smartphone market.The Turkish lira - which hit record lows at the beginning of the week, sparking contagion fears - recovered slightly against the dollar and euro on Tuesday, following reports that Finance Minister Beart Albayrak will brief hundreds of foreign investors in a teleconference on Thursday.The slump in the lira has seen foreign currency suppliers in the UK struggle to meet demand for the Turkish currency.Post Office Travel Money apologised to holidaymakers who have struggled to get hold of lira from some of its branches. Thomas Cook Money - which is supplied by Travelex - has also been running low on lira.In Asia on Wednesday, the Japanese Nikkei 225 index closed down 0.7%. In China, the Shanghai Composite is down 1.6%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong is also down 1.6%.In the economic calendar on Wednesday, besides UK inflation data, are US MBA mortgage applications at 1200 BST with retail sales at 1330 BST and second quarter nonfarm productivity due at the same time.Markets in Italy are closed for the Assumption Day holiday, while markets in France and Germany will remain open as those countries observe the holiday.
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