Whitbread (WTB) £20.70 Loss to date: -6.8% Original entry point: Buy at £22.20, 6 August 2020 Premier Inn owner Whitbread (WTB) remains an interesting investment story long term but it’s time to cut losses for now as the outlook for the business becomes increasingly cloudy. As the UK approaches winter with a second wave of coronavirus cases, the stronger lockdown measures put ...

US stocks fell for the fourth day running on Monday with the Dow Jones Industrials index falling more than 900 points at one stage. That sent Asian markets lower overnight as concerns grow over the widespread resurgence in Covid cases and the prospect of further damage to the world economy. Meanwhile volatility indicators rose and bonds rallied as investors sought safety. Despite the decidedly ...

David Smith, fund manager of Henderson High Income Trust (HHI), argues the lockdown losers that dragged on performance in the half to June will emerge from the Covid-19 crisis in ‘a strong position relative to their competition’. And despite having been through a period of dividend suspensions, deferrals and cuts, Henderson High Income forecasts an increase in the 2020 total ...

Its main competitor is heavily challenged, it has a robust balance sheet, it could benefit from a UK ‘staycation boom’ and its shares have not really budged much from their coronavirus correction lows. Now is a good time for long-term investors to buy Whitbread (WTB). Owner of the country’s largest hotel chain Premier Inn, the company has already seen a pick-up in demand in ...

The share price recovery in many travel stocks has been wiped out by the UK Government’s decision to impose a two-week quarantine on everyone arriving from Spain. Tour operator TUI (TUI) and airlines EasyJet (EZJ) and International Consolidated Airlines (IAG) are now trading around, or lower than, the level in mid-to-late March when global markets bottomed out. They had all previously seen ...

UK stocks eased on Monday ahead of the latest round of talks with the European Union regarding Britain’s post-Brexit trading relationship with the bloc. Early confidence that a deal could be reached quickly has ebbed, with the two sides seemingly as far apart as ever. Sterling was steady against the US dollar at $1.2560 while Brent crude futures fell for a third session to $42.75 and gold ...

So far this year UK companies have tapped investors for a record £15.7 billion of cash through 217 share placings, according to AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould. ‘The question for investors is whether this rash of fundraisings is a threat, an opportunity or somewhere in between,’ he says. The answer to that question depends on who’s asking for the money. Firms with a strong ...

Chancellor’s Rishi Sunak’s Summer Statement – described as a mini-budget in some quarters – delivered more or less what had been expected. In the absence of any big surprises the FTSE 100 delivered a bit of a shrug to the announcement, remaining subdued down 0.4% at 6,167.61, and sterling was unchanged against the dollar. Following a wave of job losses being announced across ...

Renewed concern about the rate of coronavirus infections globally may have contributed to the 4.3% fall in Premier Inn owner Whitbread (WTB) this morning as it updated on first quarter trading. The shares slipped back to £23.33. Almost inevitably the numbers for the period from the end of February to the end of May were horrible given they coincided almost exactly with the emergence of the ...

Despite a sharp rally in Chinese shares overnight and another day of strong gains for US shares, with the Nasdaq Composite index hitting a new record, UK stocks eased on Tuesday as more companies counted the cost of the pandemic and lockdown. On the currency markets the pound was steady against the dollar at $1.248 while gold prices eased back slightly to $1,781 per ounce. The FTSE 100 index ...

Last week saw the much-awaited reopening of ‘non-essential’ retailers, after 12 weeks of lockdown restrictions, with images of crowds milling around at retail parks and lengthy queues outside high-street stores. Research group Springboard says that while consumers have started to return to shops, footfall in the first week of non-essential retail reopening in England was only half the level ...

April gave investors a taste of corporates’ need for cash, as listed firms tapped shareholders for £3.3bn, according to London Stock Exchange data, but Compass (CPG) and Whitbread (WTB) moving to raise £3bn between them in the space of a few days takes the figures to a different level as firms continue to adjust to what the viral outbreak and lockdown mean for their business. The question now ...

The decision by FTSE 100 companies Compass (CPG) and Whitbread (WTB) to let the general public take part in their gigantic fundraisings is significant for retail investors. Hundreds of companies this year have issued new shares at a discount to the market price in order to boost their balance sheets during the crisis. The majority of these fundraisings have been restricted to institutional ...

Investors are once again being warned to carefully vet potential company share purchases for balance sheet strength. A new study has shown that the average position on borrowings for FTSE 100 companies is worse now than during the credit crunch a decade ago. The financial health check report, conducted by Bowmore Asset Management, has found that companies in the UK’s blue chip index would ...

Shares in Premier Inn owner Whitbread (WTB) plunged 12.45% to £24.89 in mid-morning trading after it warned of a 75% drop in revenue, suspended its dividend and asked shareholders for £1bn. In full year results to 27 February, Whitbread reported a 1.1% rise in statutory revenue to £2.07bn, with statutory profit for the year up 23.2% to £218m. However in the 11 weeks to 14 May, the ...

The FTSE 100 got off to a slow start on Thursday, falling 0.7% to 6,022 over concerns about a new spike in coronavirus cases. The World Health Organisation warned yesterday that the pandemic is far from over, as the largest daily rise in global cases was reported in the last 24 hours. Asian stock markets were down, with China’s Shanghai Composite down 0.55%, the Hang Seng in Hong Kong ...

UK stocks opened substantially higher on Friday after Donald Trump laid out reopening plans for the US economy, with the FTSE 100 up 158 points or 2.8% at 5,786.1 early on. Markets were also buoyed by reports that a coronavirus treatment from Gilead Sciences had delivered positive results. The rally came despite China announcing its first every quarterly economic contraction on record, with ...

This year has seen 233 London-listed companies either cancel, cut or suspend their dividends, principally because of the coronavirus crisis. This is terrible news for anyone who relies on their investments for income. In many instances, even previously-declared dividends are not going to be paid, a terrifying trend only seen during times of massive distress that has returned as fiscal prudence ...

Advertising giant WPP (WPP) and engineering company Smiths (SMIN) have become the latest FTSE 100 firms to axe their dividends, taking the total up to 13. WPP has suspended its 2019 final dividend and a £950m share buyback having cited a recent deterioration in demand, in a move which will save it £1.1bn in cash. Smiths meanwhile has not declared an interim dividend for the first half of ...

While a large part of the public has been panic buying amid the coronavirus pandemic, an even bigger percentage of investors have been doing the opposite. Panic selling has been rife across stock markets in recent weeks, leading the share prices of many companies to tumble dramatically. Some of the hardest hit had financial difficulties anyway but others, despite their strong balance ...