Friday Email: 06 July 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 is pretty flat on the week and is trading down about 15 points. The trade war between the U.S and China looks set to begin with $34 billion of tariffs imposed on Chinese goods into the US overnight. The markets do not seem overly worried at this stage probably because in the grand scheme of things, these amounts are relatively small. China has stated that it would impact GDP by 0.2%. Obviously if things start to escalate, then we may have a big issue.

The past week, as was expected was very quiet for reporting and dividend declarations so St. Modwen Properties takes center stage with a 53% increase in its 2018 interim dividend.

The week ahead remains quiet, but we do have final results from ADept Telecom, Photo-Me and Micro Focus. Dart, Ocado and Low & Bonar produce their interim results. Just a few companies going ex-dividend for over 2% next week including Prime People (3.8%), Telecom Plus (2.3%) and Sirius Real Estate for 2.3%.

Things start to hot up towards the end of July and it could be a big reporting season. We have the Brexit talks looking like bringing things to a head within the conservative party (starting today with the cabinet meeting at Chequers) and the potential trade war that will spread its tentacles with every escalation. We will be monitoring company statements very carefully to assess the potential dividend impact.

This email was originally sent on Friday 06 July 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.

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