Friday Email: 09 February 2018
Every Friday morning our lead analyst Mark Riding sends out his weekly run-down and upcoming events in the investor calendar, like this one:
World markets have fallen sharply this week as interest rate fears have shaken confidence. The FTSE 100 is down approaching 5% on the week and has fallen from 7490 to 7135 currently. The FTSE 100 has fallen over 9% since its high in early January and 7% since the start of the year. This looks like a standard correction rather than deep seated gloom and doom. Interest rate rises will need to be modest and carefully implemented due to the long time period over which people have been accustomed to low interest rates. Also, bear in mind that the rises being signalled are in part due to a stronger than expected economy.
The past week has been reasonably quiet with decent numbers from BP and Smurfit Kappa. There was a 50% increase in the interim dividend from Redrow and a 14% full year dividend increase from Smith & Nephew. Rio Tinto was the standout performer from a dividend perspective and increased its full year dividend by 58% to a record level.
The week ahead continues with a similar level of activity before the reporting season takes off in the week beginning 19th February. Big dividends going ex this coming week come from Tui (3.6%) and Astra Zeneca (2.8%).
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.
