Updates from Halfords, Burberry and Severn Trent
The FTSE 100 edged 15.8 points higher on Tuesday, completing the day's run at 6,753.7. Sky and Meggitt were the biggest climbers, up 4% and 3.9% to 1122p and 489p. Sky was buoyed by a Buy rating from Deutsche Bank. Better news for supermarkets too with Tesco and Sainsbury's up 1.9% and 1.7%. Both GKN and JohnsonMatthey saw falls of 1.8%.
Stateside the Dow Jones lifted almost 76 points, more than sufficient to lift it past the 18,000 barrier again to 18,053.5 with Unitedhealth Group and JP Morgan Chase up 2% and 1.4%.
We start Wednesday with an interim from Severn Trent- no change to business performance or outlook since its numbers on 22 May. Severn says the Group will deliver trading performance consistent with expectations for the full year.
The dividend is set to be 80.66p for 2015/16. Operating costs are expected to be lower year on year due to the impact of the organisational changes and the supply chain efficiencies already announced claims Severn.
"We continue," it says, "to make very good progress on delivering efficiency savings across Severn Trent Water, and have made a good start to our AMP6 capital programme."
We move onto macs, scent and bags with Burberry next. For the three months to 30 June Burberry claims retail revenue of £407m, up 8% on an underlying basis. The fashion brand claims double-digit growth in EMEIA but a low single-digit decline in Asia Pacific.
Burberry claims continuing strong customer response to British-made heritage trench coats and cashmere scarves but deceleration in Hong Kong keeps the ex British colony a "challenging" lux market.
"While mindful that the external environment remains challenging," says boss Christopher Bailey, "we will continue to focus on growth opportunities across channels, regions and products, with exciting plans for the year ahead."
We finish off with a trip to Halfords. The retailer claims Q1 underlying like-for-like growth of 4.2%. Cycling sales is up strongly with Premium Bikes up 8% and Cycle Repair up 24%; Car Maintenance is up driven by Parts and Workshop, up 7% and 10%.
As far as its auto centres goes, "positive momentum" is maintained. Online retail sees sales up 8.2% with 91% collected in store. All guidance for the full year remains unchanged says the company.
"Our Retail business," says boss Jill McDonald, "continues to deliver a broad-based top-line performance, against two previous years of strong like-for-like growth... In May we opened our fifth Cycle Republic store in Nottingham and there are further openings planned across the country."
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