Friday Email: 13 February 2015
Every Friday morning our lead analyst Mark Riding sends out his weekly run-down and upcoming events in the investor calendar, like this one:
The FTSE 100 continues to hover around the 6850 mark, but is yet to push through. Good news on Ukraine has helped the market this morning with the FTSE 100 trading at 6879 as I write, so we watch closely to see if the index can break the resistance level.
The past week saw good dividend increases from Rio Tinto, Telecity, ARM Holdings and Randgold Resources. Special dividends have started to emerge as the reporting season begins and so far we have had Beazley and this week Lancashire holdings paying yet another special dividend. In addition to that we saw retailer Dunelm promise to pay back 70p via a C-share scheme, details below:
'The return of capital of 70 pence per Ordinary Share by way of a B/C share scheme. The total value of the return of capital will equate to approximately £142 million and will be paid to shareholders on the register at 6.00 pm on 2 March 2015. The return of capital is in addition to an interim dividend of 5.5 pence per share to be paid to shareholders on the register at 6.00 pm on 13 March 2015.' (ex div 12th March)
Dunelm, like Next are a strong cash generator that is also growing very nicely. Shareholders can expect further returns of capital and whilst you always have to pay a bit of a price to pick up companies of this nature (they trade on 19x next years earnings), the blow is softened by an immediate return of 70p followed up by the interim dividend. The first half results were good and the full year will see solid growth.
The week ahead sees final results from Fidessa, Hammerson, Intercontinental Hotels, John Wood, BAE, Centrica, Primary Health, Essentra and Standard Life. The following week sees the reporting season in full swing with over 50 companies that we cover reporting to the market.
The Friday email is delivered to over 20,000 subscriber’s every week, and remains a widely read run-down of recent events and what investors can expect in the week ahead written by our chief analyst Mark Riding.
It’s included as part of the free DividendMax trial.
Read next: 06 February 2015
The FTSE 100 continues to challenge the 6850 mark at the top of its current trading range. The newsflow appears to be getting better as Greek fears have eased and the Euro is strong this morning. The oil price has also risen, which has boosted the FTSE 100's large resources sector. The DividendMax 2015 model portfolio got a boost yesterday as Ball Corporation has made a play for Rexam. The share price is sitting well below the offer of £6.10, so it would seem that there is some way to go before it plays out fully.
