Stocks in London were higher at midday on Wednesday, boosted by retailers ahead of a US consumer price inflation reading.Amongst individual stocks, Tesco led the charge, after unveiling a £1 billion share buyback programme. Other retailers also got a boost on the back of the results.The FTSE 100 index was up 47.65 points, 0.6%, at 7,982.44. The FTSE 250 was up 171.65 points, 0.9%, at 19,935.00, a

Siemens confirms it will not make offerShares fall 4% and remain 35% below highsRenishaw remains a takeover targetWith so many UK firms being picked-off by foreign buyers and private equity, it is refreshing to see German industrial giant Siemens (SIE:ETR) walk away from making an offer for engineering group Renishaw (RSW).That said, investors were not best pleased with the shares falling 4% to £

There is a new term for the US market doing the rounds in financial circles ? move over ?Goldilocks?, stocks are now ?Teflon?.In other words, even if the economic news is bad ? such as the latest US inflation data, which topped analysts? forecasts ? it doesn?t stick because stocks are only going up, and whereas investors used to fear a sell-off their greatest worry right now is not being in the ma

In an up and down week US indices were a touch off their record levels although the end of the week took on a more positive hue thanks to comments from Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. Powell suggested rate cuts were not too far away. Shares in IT outfit Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE:NYSE) surged on strong demand for the company's artificial intelligence focused servers. Excitement around

A lot was riding on Nvidia?s (NVDA:NASDAQ) latest quarterly update with the strong run for the shares leaving little margin for error. However, it delivered and the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average reached new record highs. The big loser this week was Palo Alto Networks (PANW:NASDAQ) which endured a major slump in its share price after revealing softer client spending and steep promotions

In a week foreshortened by the Thanksgiving holiday, US markets, for the most part, consolidated their recent gains.Investors on Wall Street seem increasingly hopeful rates have peaked and this has set the scene for a possible Santa Rally through the remainder of the year.The test will be if the Federal Reserve tries to pour cold water on this idea ? perhaps when it next meets in mid-December. Ent

Third quarter earnings to the end of October (16 November) from Bentonville-based Walmart (WMT:NYSE) will provide investors with an invaluable read into the health of the US consumer with the holiday selling season in full swing at the world's biggest retailer.Shares in Walmart are testing all-time highs with investors convinced the retailer's sharp value focus will lure in shoppers and lead to fu

The past week has increasingly taken on a bearish hue on Wall Street as concerns about interest rates and a bubbling Chinese property crisis have begun to dominate.Minutes of the latest Federal Reserve meeting talking about upside risks to inflation and the need, potentially, for further rate hikes (16 August) helped put upward pressure on US government bond yields and contributed to weakness in s

Nick Train, who co-founded asset manager Lindsell Train with Michael Lindsell, is one of the UK's most-followed fund managers. His insights in commentaries for the Finsbury Growth & Income (FGT) and Lindsell Train (LTI) investment trusts are pored over by fellow stock pickers and media alike.Train and Lindsell remain actively involved in fund management and running their company until at least 202

- Ongoing tech issues to trigger €25 million profits hit- CEO steps down with immediate effect- Post-pandemic profit recovery proving challengingShares in C&C (CCR) sank 17.5% to 127.1p after the Dublin-headquartered drinks company warned it will incur a €25 million one-off hit to profitability for the year to February 2024 related to disruption from a botched software upgrade, which has

US stocks notched a new high water mark for the year during the past week, the market's pep suggesting investors think progress is being made on negotiations to raise the debt ceiling. Driving gains was the S&P 500, which has now chalked-up a near-10% advance so far in 2023, returns that few would have thought possible at the beginning of the year.A stronger dollar and higher Treasury yields shoul

Share prices opened higher in Europe on Friday, following mostly positive trading in the US and Asia on the hint of a solution to the political impasse over the US debt limit.In London, the FTSE 100 index was up 20.17 points, 0.2%, at 7,762.47. The FTSE 250 was up 17.63 points, 0.1%, at 19,315.88, and the AIM All-Share was up 0.49 of a point at 810.43.The Cboe UK 100 was up 0.2% at 775.80, the Cbo

It has been a mixed start to 2023 for the mining industry, one of the few remaining sectors where the London stock market still has many of the world's biggest names.A reopening of the Chinese economy helped drive a rally in miners of industrial metals in the first weeks of the new year before concerns about recession began to weigh more heavily. On the flipside the precious metals space has come

Barclays to kick off key reporting season with UK banks undera cloudThe recent crisis in the sector has raised questions about financial stabilityThe collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the resulting fallout in the banking sector is not the best backdrop for the UK banks as they get set to report first quarter numbers.Up first is Barclays (BARC) on 27 April. Its 2022 results published on 15 Februa

It was a sobering week for US investors as some of the recent gains on Wall Street were reversed off the back of weak economic data.The manufacturing PMI (purchasing managers index) reading showed factory activity levels contracting more than expected, while the services sector expanded less than forecast and job openings were lower than anticipated at 9.93 million against the 10.49 million estima

US retail sales figures for January proved strong across the board and supported the rosy view the American consumer can remain resilient in the face of inflation, rising interest rates and dwindling pandemic savings.According to the Commerce Department, retail sales for the month grew by 3%, beating expectations of a 1.9% rise and with no categories seeing a decline, as shoppers continued to spen

Sentiment improved markedly on Wall Street over the past week on signs earnings growth is easing, as US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said nothing to spook the markets in his latest speech and as inflation dropped again in December.A CPI reading of 6.5% may have been bang in line with expectations but still represents a meaningful drop from the peak levels seen last summer.Investors are incr

After making very strong gains the previous week on a lower-than-expected inflation reading, US stocks were on the back foot again.Initial excitement that the apparent easing of inflationary pressures would lead to a pivot on interest rates from the US Federal Reserve faded after hawkish comments from Fed officials.There were also mixed signs on the health of the consumer economy, with department

Shares in US retail giant Walmart (WMT) reacted positively to its latest trading update (15 November), climbing 7.5% to $149 pre-market for a year-to-date gain of 3% compared with a loss of 17% for the S&P 500 index.The firm reported revenues for the third quarter of $152.8 billion, up 8.7% on a headline basis or 9.8% in constant currencies and comfortably ahead of market forecasts of $148 billio

Weakness in the pound will only serve to heighten the likelihood of foreign companies buying UK businesses.We saw this happen when the pound slumped after the EU referendum on Brexit in 2016, including takeovers for chip giant Arm and broadcasting group Sky.UK stocks have been cheap on a relative basis to many other geographies since then, and now they've got even cheaper due to political, financi