Good morning from London where yet more signs of a slowdown in the Chinese economy have failed to drag down the FTSE 100. London’s blue chip index is up on the day so far, with Ocado by far the biggest gainer. The grocery delivery company has reported an underlying profit for the first half, helped by its first warehouse opening in Japan, while its UK business broke even.
Revolution Beauty stocks are also up today as the company finally settled a dispute with shareholder Boohoo, following attempts by the latter to demand a board shakeup last month. Revolution CEO Bob Holt will step down as part of the agreement.
Zooming out a bit now, the UK’s nuclear industry is making headlines this morning as the government launched its arms-length body Great British Nuclear to support the rollout of mini reactors. Rolls-Royce shares opened higher on the news, aided by the fact that of all the companies developing the smaller modular units, it’s the only one to have its design already passing through the UK’s regulatory process.
Elsewhere, trading platform Robinhood – made famous during the 2021 meme stock frenzy – appears to be opening up its services to the UK as per a series of job posts on LinkedIn.
And in small caps, Andrada Mining has raised some money and kicked off the commissioning of operations at its pilot plant in Namibia. You can watch my interview with the CEO Anthony Viljoen later this morning.