Today's edition features:
Markets
Europe
The FTSE-100 finished yesterday's session 0.39% higher at 7,468.11 whilst the FTSE AIM All-Share index was up 0.68% at 1,015.17. In continental Europe, the CAC-40 finished 0.32% higher at 5,367.41 whilst the DAX was closed yesterday for a public holiday.
Wall Street
In New York last night, the Dow Jones closed 0.37% higher at 22,641.67, the S&P-500 climbed 0.22% to stand at 2,534.58 and the Nasdaq added 0.23% to end the session at 6,531.71.
Asia
In Asian markets this morning, the Nikkei 225 was 0.18% higher at 20,650.25 and the Hang Seng was up by 0.78% at 28,391.92.
Oil
In early trade today, WTI crude was 0.73% lower at $50.05 per barrel and Brent was down 0.57% at $55.68 per barrel.
Headlines
Tesco hails strong progress as sales rise again
Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis has hailed "strong progress" at the supermarket as sales rose for the seventh quarter in a row. Like-for-like sales, which strip out new store openings, rose 2.1% in the second quarter. Pre-tax profit was also up, rising to £562m for the first half compared with £71m for the same period last year. Tesco said that despite "challenging" market conditions, it had "worked hard to minimise price increases". The results come as Tesco is awaiting the results of an in-depth competition probe into its proposed £3.7bn takeover of wholesale giant Booker. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is expected to report its provisional findings next month, with a final decision due in December. The CMA has said there are 350 areas where there is an overlap between Tesco shops and Booker-supplied independent stores.
Source: BBC News
Latest Video
On Thursday, 28th September 2017 Leon Coetzer, CEO and Colin Bird, Non-Executive Chairman of Jubilee Platinum (JLP.L) presented an update on the company at the Beaufort offices. Click here to see the interview.
Beaufort Securities acts as corporate broker to Jubilee Platinum PLC
Company news
Ryanair Holdings (LON:RYA, EUR17.40) - Buy
Ryanair, a low-cost European short-haul airline company, yesterday provided its traffic update for September 2017. During the month, passenger traffic increased by +10% y-o-y to 11.8 million customers, while the load factor grew +2% y-o-y to 97%. The rolling annual traffic to September rose +12% to 127.3 million customers. Passenger traffic represents the number of earned seats flown, while load factor represents the number of passengers as a proportion of the number of seats available for passengers.
Our View: Ryanair reported strong passenger traffic and load factor data for September, despite the figures including previously announced (15 September 2017) cancellation of 2,100 flights (315,000 passengers) for September and October, implying c.2% of the whole year flights. The Group said it has now refunded/re-accommodated 98% of passengers who were impacted in September and October. The flight cancellations were primarily caused as a result of the Group changed its staff holiday year from April to March to a calendar year January to December, as required by the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA), in line with European law. This shift caused shortages of available pilots and cabin crew as Ryanair had to allocate all leaves by 31 December 2017 rather than March 2018. At its AGM on 21 September 2017, Ryanair said these cancellations will not impact its full year profit after tax guidance in the range of €1.40bn to €1.45bn, however, since then, the Group has announced on 27 September 2017 that it will cancel further 18,000 flights (400,000 passengers) between November 2017 and March 2018 in order to eliminate "all risk of further flight cancellations", while agreed to implement Irish Commission for Aviation Regulation's requirements for passenger's rights and entitlements, (including full refunds, or re-accommodation onto other Ryanair flights or other comparable transport options with reimbursement of reasonable out of pocket expenses). This may trigger increased compensation payout to its customers, whilst the recent news regarding Norwegian Air pitching on Ryanair's pilots would likely to incur pilots' pay increases and more hiring over the next two years, pushing the costs up, hence it may impact the full year profit guidance stated above. While Beaufort waits for more clarity on the scale of such impacts on this year's profitability, the fundamentals of Ryanair remain strong as passengers will continue to be attracted by its ability to offer lower fares. Given recent flight cancellations are one-off impacts, Beaufort maintains its Buy rating on the Shares, while awaits for its interim results scheduled to be released on 31 October 2017.