Shares in Dignity (DTY) rallied 4.9% to 245.5p on Monday after the troubled funeral services provider assured it has healthy cash balances to cope with the COVID crisis, the means to improve headroom against its banking covenants and that ‘liquidity remains robust for the time being’. This enabled investors to look past a year-on-year drop in first quarter average income per funeral and a ...

A busy week for economic data gets off to a positive start in the UK with markets on the front foot as investors embraced the government’s first moves to ease pandemic lockdown measures. Both the benchmark FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 mid cap indexes made early gains on Monday despite the absence of major corporate news, rising around 1% apiece to 5,994.32 and 16,414.81, outstripping gains on major ...

At the worst point on Monday 9 March, the FTSE 100 traded 8.4% lower, recording its fourth biggest one-day drop on record. Only two days during the 1987 crash (12.2% and 10.8%) and in the 2008 global financial crisis (8.8%) were worse. The oil sector bore the brunt of the latest sell-off with an estimated £61.5bn wiped off UK oil stocks, with Premier Oil (PMO) and Tullow Oil (TLW) seeing the ...

Having seen bouts of ghoulish interest in recent weeks amid the spread of the coronavirus, shares in Dignity (DTY) dropped 19% to 405p on Wednesday after the embattled funeral services firm warned average income per funeral and cremation are likely to reduce further due to increased competition. Temporarily suspending the dividend with annual results showing profits and cash generation ...

UK stocks started the week lower after Asian markets sank as protests in Hong Kong and ongoing uncertainty over a US-China trade deal cast a shadow over trading. China’s Shanghai Composite index fell 0.5% while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 0.6%. At 8.30am the FTSE 100 was down by 0.5% to 7,319 with banks, industrials, metals, mining and oil equipment holding the index back while the ...

UK stocks got off to a strong start on Friday as lingering fears of a no-deal Brexit kept the pound under pressure, assisting exporters. The pound slumped by around half a US cent after Bank of England policy committee member Michael Saunders indicated that UK interest rates may be cut due to Brexit uncertainty. At 8:48am, the benchmark FTSE 100 index was up 66.62 points, or 0.9%, at ...

London’s FTSE 100 weakens a further 73 points to 7,089 on Monday as the exchange of trade threats between Washington and Beijing stirs fears of a recession and German chipmaker Infineon’s deal to buy US peer Cypress Semiconductors weighs on the technology sector. Construction and infrastructure firm Kier (KIE) crumbles 29.4% to 196.4p on a warning full year 2019 underlying operating profit ...

Funeral services provider Dignity (DTY) is marked down 6.3% to 633.25p after warning full year profits could materially undershoot expectations. This blow follows a disappointing first quarter caused by a ‘significantly lower than expected number of deaths’. Sutton Coldfield-headquartered Dignity doesn’t expect the recent proportional death rate decrease to continue throughout the rest of ...

Led by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), anti-trust regulators around the world are having a bigger say than ever in corporate affairs. While this is good news for consumers, for investors the regulators represent another level of risk and complexity. There are many current examples involving UK-quoted shares such as news last week that the CMA was opening a full investigation ...

Our annual portfolio of share picks has outperformed the market yet again, although we didn’t deliver a positive return. The average share price return from our portfolio of 10 stocks was a 6.4% loss versus a 10.2% decline from the FTSE All-Share. It was a very difficult year for all investors, including fund managers, and anyone who managed to deliver positive returns deserves ...

Plans to buyout UK shopping centres operator Intu Properties (INTU) have fallen through after a consortium led by the group’s chairman John Whittaker pulled the plug. This comes a huge disappointment to investors in the owner of Manchester's Trafford Centre, sparking a massive 38%-plus slump in the Intu share price, to 117.85p. That values the business at about £1.6bn. This is the second ...

Cigarettes giant British American Tobacco (BATS) heads the FTSE 100 lower board on Monday following newspaper reports that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wants to ban menthol cigarettes. The story emerged from the Wall Street Journal over the weekend and it has got investors in BAT worried, with shares in the group slumping 9% in early trade to £31.07. BAT owns Newport, which is the ...

Nine months into 2018 and we’re still outperforming the market with our top picks of the year. Nonetheless, a 3.1% average gain versus 0.3% loss from the FTSE All-Share only calls for a celebratory orange juice and lemonade rather than high quality champagne. Earlier gains have been reduced thanks to notable weakness in Alliance Pharma (APH:AIM) in recent weeks plus Dixons Carphone’s ...

Many investors are fascinated by how certain investors got to be so famous, searching for the special formula that made the likes of Warren Buffett and Philip Fisher so rich. Well now’s your chance to mimic their approach and apply their proven methodology to today’s market. We show you two ways to deploy their process. The first uses stock screeners built using Stockopedia’s ...

Investors looking to profit from a bargain-hunting style of investing should snap up Aurora Investment Trust (ARR) as it provides exposure to high quality businesses with huge upside potential. Aurora trades at a near-3% premium to net asset value (NAV) of 213.63p, yet Shares believes this is more than merited by the manager’s superb track record, while the announcement (18 Jun) of a ...

After a delay to the opening of the London stock market, the FTSE 100 ticks higher early on thanks to another good day for the miners combined with strength among financial companies, before easing back 3.7 points to 7708.7. Mitie (MTO) is marked up 7.1p or 3.6% to 202.8p as the outsourcer says it expects ‘modest’ sales growth next year and reiterates medium term margin improvement guidance ...

Funerals provider Dignity (DTY)  is on the back foot after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it is launching a review into the £2bn funerals market to ensure people aren’t getting a bad deal. Shares in Dignity fell 14% to £10.43 as investors are worried about the potential risks from greater regulation. Earlier this year, the company cut funeral prices to compete with ...

The FTSE 100 enjoys strong gains on Friday morning despite the threat of a trade war between the US and several of its trading partners after a breakthrough overnight on the political deadlock in Italy. Early on the index is up 0.57% at 7,722.16. Funeral provider Dignity (DTY) slumps 14.2% to £10.43 as the Competition & Markets Authority launches a review into the £2bn funerals ...

Embattled funerals services group Dignity (DTY) now believes full year results will be ahead of previously downgraded expectations following a positive start to 2018, sending its share price soaring by nearly 18% to £10.96. The company says price cuts are helping it to fight back against fresh competition. The Sutton Coldfield-headquartered firm not only flags year-on-year sales ...

The FTSE 100 is up 30 points to 7,255.77 following a strong performance on Wall Street overnight. It appears that fears of geopolitical fallout over Syrian airstrikes have subsided and all eyes will be on the UK’s consumer price index data due out later today. Shopping centre investor Hammerson (HMSO) gains 2.3% to 505p after pulling out of a deal to purchase rival shopping centre operator ...