Friday Email: 09 March 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:

The FTSE 100 has had a good week rising over 100 points, but the markets remain nervous.

The past week has seen the main reporting season continue and we have seen double digit percentage dividend increases from Intertek, Bodycote, Ibstock, Headlam, IWG, Hill & Smith, FDM and Domino's Pizza. Inmarsat reported this morning and they have cut their annual dividend to $20 cents, which after a decent run since their IPO in terms of dividend increases, amounts to a two thirds reduction. The shares are down only about 5% this morning, which indicates that the market is reasonably okay with the explanation provided.

The week ahead remains busy but less so than the previous two weeks. Companies going ex-dividend on Thursday for decent yields over 2% include 3i infrastructure; who are paying a big special, Crest Nicholson (4.5%), Galliford Try (3.3%), Hammerson (3.2%), Essentra (3%), Spirent Communications (1.4% plus 2.9% special dividend), Anglo American and Law Debenture.

This email was originally sent on Friday 09 March 2018

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.