WHIreland Share News (WHI)

LONDON (Alliance News) - Share prices in London are set to gain early Wednesday amid hopes that a US-China trade agreement could still be reached at the upcoming G20 summit later this week."Global equities continue to dance to the tune of trade tension headlines. Despite starting the day in the red, the Dow closed higher overnight, after White House advisor Larry Kudlow sought to bring a glimmer of hope to prospects of de-escalating trade tensions," said Jasper Lawler, head of research at London Capital Group.In company news, Experian said it is "disappointed" that the UK competition regulator thinks its acquisition of ClearScore will harm competition, RPC Group reported a fall in interim profit, and On the Beach Group reported strong annual revenue and profit growth. IG says futures indicate the FTSE 100 index of large-caps to open 33.95 points higher at 7,050.80 on Wednesday. The FTSE 100 index closed down 19.15 points, or 0.3%, at 7,016.85 on Tuesday.Stocks ended lower on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump vowed to press ahead with hiking tariffs on Chinese imports. However, the US stance towards China appears to have softened overnight.White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow said the Trump administration has restarted talks with the Chinese government "at all levels" and that the upcoming Trump-Xi meeting offers an "opportunity to break through"."In his view there is a good possibility that a deal can be made and [Trump] is open to it," Kudlow said. But he warned that if conditions are not met on issues such as intellectual property theft and other practices that Trump has called unfair, the president is "perfectly happy" to stand on his tariff policies.Shares in Asia rallied overnight, with the Japanese Nikkei 225 index ending up 1.0%. In China, the Shanghai Composite closed up 1.1%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong is up 1.3%.In the US on Tuesday, Wall Street ended broadly higher, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average ending up 0.4%, the S&P 500 up 0.3% and Nasdaq Composite closing flat.In early UK company news, Experian said it is "disappointed" the Competitions & Markets Authority believes its takeover of ClearScore is likely to hurt competition. "Currently, competition between the the firms is helping to drive quality and innovation in both free and paid-for credit checking services as they develop their products to vie for customers. By taking one of the firms out of the market, the CMA's provisional finding is that the merger would substantially reduce the pressure to continue to develop innovative offers and to make other improvements in services," the CMA said on Wednesday. The CMA is now asking for views on its provisional findings before making a final decision, due in March 2019. Experian, in response, said it will continue to engage with the CMA to address any concerns ahead of the publication of the regulator's final report. The credit-checking firm added that it "strongly" believes the acquisition of ClearScore will have a positive effect on competition. Plastic products maker RPC Group said profit fell in its half-year despite a rise in revenue. Revenue grew 7% in the six months to September 30 to GBP1.89 billion, with organic growth of 3.2%. Pretax profit fell 4.5% to GBP154.4 million from GBP161.7 million a year ago, and was down 2% on an adjusted basis to GBP188.9 million.The company lifted its interim dividend by 4% to 8.1p."I am pleased with the trading performance over the last six months. We achieved good profitable organic growth with a robust cash flow performance whilst investing for future higher added value growth. I am excited by the many opportunities to further develop both organically and through acquisitions," said Chief Executive Pim Vervaat.RPC is currently in preliminary talks with both Apollo Global Management and Bain Capital regarding a takeover offer. The deadline for both firms to either announce a firm offer for PRC or walk away is Monday next week. RPC gave no further update on the discussions in its interim results.On the Beach Group posted strong growth in annual revenue and profit. Revenue for the year to September 30 grew 25% to GBP104.1 million, as pretax profit rose 24% to GBP26.1 million. The beach holiday travel firm's dividend for the year was 18% higher at 3.3p.In current trading, the FTSE 250 constituent said the seasonally quieter first quarter of its new financial year has seen a "strong" early trading performance, supported by a slightly earlier release of summer capacity by major low-cost air carriers, lower year-on-year seat prices for winter departures, and efficiency in marketing spend. "This current performance is in line with our expectations and the board believes the business is well positioned for the key trading period that commences in late December and continues into Q1 2019," On the Beach said. Brewin Dolphin said it was "another successful year" as the investment manager reported growth in total funds and profit.Total funds for the year rose 6.7% to GBP42.8 billion, with total income for the period up 8.0% to GBP329.0 million from GBP304.5 million the year before and pretax profit up 19% to GBP68.5 million. The company raised its dividend by 9.3% to 16.4p. Smaller peer WH Ireland reported a GBP2.1 million pretax loss in the first half of its financial year, widened from GBP960,000 a year before, on revenue that slipped to GBP12.8 million from GBP14.5 million. However, the broker said fee income is now running at GBP1.3 million per month, accounting for 55% of total revenue, providing a strong base for improvement in 2019.WH Ireland also said it will appoint an interim head of finance next week, after Daniel Cowland decided to resign by the end of April next year.FTSE 250 engineer Senior said trading has been in line with expectations and the firm expects "good progress" to be made in 2018. The Aerospace Division has continued to benefit from activity in the large commercial aircraft sector, the company said. Senior added that construction of new aerospace facilities in Malaysia and in Massachusetts are proceeding well and will be fully operational during the second half of 2019 and first half of 2020, respectively.Trading in the Flexonics Division was also as expected, benefiting from growth in the truck, off-highway and upstream oil and gas markets. This was partially tempered by an anticipated decline in passenger vehicle.Softcat said customer demand has remained strong across all segments in its first quarter, leading the IT infrastructure firm to deliver year-on-year growth in revenue, gross profit and operating profit. "We've traded well during the first quarter of our new financial year and, whilst there's still a long way to go, we're pleased with performance so far and are exactly where we'd want to be at this stage," said Chief Executive Graeme Watt, adding that the firm remains on track to meet annual board expectations. In Wednesday's economic calendar, and French third-quarter GDP is out at 0745 GMT while Ireland's retail sales are at 1100 GMT. In the US, third-quarter GDP is at 1330 GMT along with core personal consumption expenditures at the same time. At 1700 GMT, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks in New York.In the UK, the Bank of England will release its annual stress test results for major UK banks at 1630 GMT."Last year, for the first time all seven UK banks passed the stress test; investors will be hoping for a repeat performance. The Brexit shock scenario results will be of particular interest. As all banks passed the Brexit doomsday scenario last year and have also since boosted their balance sheets; the expectation is that they will pass it again. That said, RBS and Barclays performed poorly in recent European stress tests meaning investors will have them earmarked," said LCG's Lawler.The annual stress test results come as the UK government is to set out its analysis of the economic impact of Brexit as Theresa May battles to save her deal for leaving the EU.Downing Street said the papers will cover a "range of scenarios" as the prime minister seeks to press her case that the agreement represents the only way to protect jobs and investment while avoiding the chaos of a no-deal break.She will then travel to Scotland for another day of campaigning as she appeals over the heads of MPs to ordinary voters to support her plan. The Treasury analysis is expected to conclude the UK will be far better off under the terms of May's controversial agreement with Brussels than if it faced a disorderly Brexit with a no-deal break.In UK data already out, figures from the latest BRC-Nielsen Shop Price Index showed shop prices in are almost unchanged from last Christmas in good news for consumers but a continuation of difficult conditions for struggling retailers.Overall prices were 0.1% higher in November compared with a year ago, making it just the third month of inflation in five years, according to the index. Food inflation accelerated to 1.6% this month from 1.3% in October, partly due to higher global cereal prices pushing up on the prices of several products.Mike Watkins, head of retailer and business insight at Nielsen, said: "With the recent slowdown in sales growth across food retailing and the start of seasonal advertising, we can expect further price cuts as the battle for shopper loyalty this Christmas begins to heat up."