Friday Email: 31 August 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:
After a good start to the shortened week, the FTSE 100 took a downturn and is now trading around 100 points lower. The trade rows continue as Donald Trump is threatening another $200 billion of tariffs on Chinese goods and he is also talking about pulling out of the World Trade Organisation. As we have said previously, apart from small blips this is not affecting US markets at all with US markets hitting record highs earlier in the week.
The past week saw plenty of solid dividend increases with James Fisher (10%), Arrow Global (25%), Hays (18%) plus an 18% increase from last years special dividend, Eddie Stobart (10%) and this morning Emis announced a 10% increase. Meanwhile Bunzl, who announced a 9% increase became a dividend champion after clocking up their 25th consecutive year of dividend increases.
The week ahead sees around 12 companies that we cover reporting to the market.
Going ex dividend on Thursday with yields of 2% or more from the single dividend we have Reach (3.4%), Phoenix Group (3.2%), BHP Billiton (2.9%), John Laing Infrastuscture (2.5%), Glencore (2.4%), Page (2.1%), Polymetal International (2.1%), WYG (2%), International Personal Finance (2%) and Admiral with 2%.
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: 24 August 2018
The FTSE 100 is flat on the week and is trading at 7560. The markets are watching the trade talks with the US and China, which do not look like they will be resolved quickly. The situation with President Trump is unsettling US markets, but not significantly at this stage with the Dow still trading near all time highs. Meanwhile, the Brexit arguments continue to prolong the agony and you get the feeling that this situation is becoming increasingly difficult to resolve.
