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Smith & Nephew, speciality chemicals firm Croda International and asset manager Abrdn are among the major companies with results out today. Other developments include a potential boost for the London stock market amid reports that China e-commerce firm Shein is mulling a potential listing.
Barclays is to return at least £10 billion to shareholders over the next three years as part of plans unveiled by boss C.S. Venkatakrishnan today. Hotels group IHG has also reported results today, while the focus for US investors will be on the earnings of retailers The Home Depot and Walmart.
Bets that US interest rates will stay higher for longer today continued to weigh on stock market sentiment. As well as the focus on the rates outlook, today’s London session included updates from Boohoo and the food-on-the-go chain Greggs.
ChancellorJeremy Hunt is expected to use his speech to Tory party conference to confirm an increase in the national living wage to at least £11 an hour from next April. The Conservatives said the move will benefit two million of the lowest paid, with Mr Hunt also expected to announce ministers will look again at the benefit sanctions regime in a bid to get the unemployed back into work. It comes as Rishi Sunak resisted calls from fellow Tories to commit to tax cuts in a pre-election giveaway and vowed to prioritise reducing inflation rather than taxes.
Apple’s former head of design is in talks to raise $1 billion dollars to take on its iPhone with an AI-powered rival. London-born Jony Ive, whose work was instrumental to the design of a suite of Apple products including the iPod, iPhone and MacBook, is seeking to raise the funds from Japanese investing giant SoftBank in a partnership with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, according the FT. Ive and OpenAI boss Sam Altman are exploring what an AI-powered consumer device would look like, including how to make the user experience more intuitive than the iPhone.