Friday Email: 04 December 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 markets were doing ok this week until midday on Thursday when it was decided by traders that the ECB deciion on QE was not enough and the FTSE plunged 150 points in quick time and is looking to open further down this morning.

The past week saw dividend increases across the board from the companies that reported with large increases coming from Zoopla (+127%), WPG (+67%) and Brewin Dolphin (+32%). Of the larger stocks, Sage increased by 8.1% and Aberdeen Asset Management by 6.6%.

Berkeley Group announced an enhancement to its shareholder returns programme this morning which was already generous, but they have added another £500 million so that the overall return since the announcement has now increased from £13 per share to £16.34. From this mornings announcement:

Dividend return programme enhanced by £0.5 billion, from £13.00 per share to £16.34 per share - first £4.34 already delivered on schedule.  Remaining £12 per share to be delivered evenly over next 6 years with first £1 per share to be paid in january 2016

The week ahead sees Ashtead report on Wednesday. Until yesterday, it had been doing quite well, but it really suffered in the rout yesterday falling 50p on the day. Also reporting are Stagecoach, Micro-Focus and another of our favourites Photo-me International.

There was a recovery on Wall Street after hours, but it does not look as though it will be enough to stop further falls in London and Europe this morning.

There is already talk of the Santa Rally, which does normally happen, but yesterday put fear into investors minds. It has been a bad year for the markets overall so far and it does not feel optimistic out there to me right now, although company profits and dividend increases just keep coming.

This email was originally sent on Friday 04 December 2015

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.