Aviva hikes interim dividend, Balfour Beatty underlying earnings grow

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open 21 points lower on Wednesday, having closed down 1.57% on Tuesday at 7,389.64.

Stocks to watch

Aviva reported “strong” first-half results on Wednesday, with an 8% increase in group operating profit and a 26% rise in Solvency II own funds generation. The company said it remained optimistic about 2023, and anticipated surpassing its medium-term targets. Additionally, it raised its interim dividend by 8% to 11.1p per share.

Balfour Beatty described a solid first half on Wednesday, with revenues rising 9% year-on-year to £4.5bn. Underlying profit from operations (for earnings-based businesses grew 12% to £95m, while group profit from operations decreased 6% due to the timing of disposals and reduced profit in infrastructure Investments. Underlying profit before tax saw an increase of 13%, and underlying earnings per share reached 13p, a slight increase from 12.9p a year earlier.

Newspaper round-up

UK inflation has fallen to its weakest level since before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, pushed down by energy bills falling after the lower price cap took effect in July. Figures out this morning from the Office for National Statistics reveal the rate of price growth fell to 6.8 percent last month, the lowest reading since February 2022 and down from 7.9 per cent in the previous month. - The Times

Oxford Street’s decline risks becoming the blueprint for Britain’s high streets if ministers fail to support regeneration efforts, retail chiefs have warned. A report authored by the Retail Sector Council, whose members include the chief executives of Sainsbury’s, Boots and Primark, urged ministers to support the industry by reforming competition law and levelling the playing field between online retailers and bricks-and-mortar stores. - Telegraph

Profits at Harrods rose almost 10-fold last year as big-spending tourists returned to London after the pandemic. The Knightsbridge department store, which is owned by the investment arm of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, saw profits hit £171.6m and sales increased 52% to £994m in the year to January 2023, according to accounts filed at Companies House. - Guardian

Top investors are increasingly abandoning the safe haven of cash and returning to the markets as fears start to ease that the global economy will slide into recession, according to a closely watched survey of big global fund managers. Bank of America said its monthly poll of investors had found that the mood in the international markets was the least bearish since February last year with optimism about the health of the economy starting to increase. - The Times

The billionaire owners of Asda and petrol station giant EG Group are selling off a swathe of convenience stores in the US as they race to pay down billions of pounds of debt. Mohsin and Zuber Issa have offloaded 63 EG Group-owned shops in Kentucky and Tennessee to the American chain Casey’s General Stores for an undisclosed sum. - Telegraph

Russia’s central bank has hiked interest rates by 3.5 percentage points in an emergency move aimed at halting the rouble’s recent slide, after it fell to its weakest point in almost 17 months. The decision to raise the key rate from 8.5% to 12% was announced after an extraordinary meeting of the bank’s board of directors, called after the rouble plunged past the psychologically key level of 100 to the dollar on Monday morning. - Guardian

US close

Wall Street's main equity indices closed lower on Tuesday, despite a robust showing in US retail sales figures, as apprehensions over China's economic health took centre stage.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average concluded the day's trading 1.02% lower at 34,946.39.

Similarly, the S&P 500 shed 1.16% to settle at 43,437.86, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ended at 13,631.05, reflecting a decline of 1.14%.

In currency markets, the dollar was last up 0.03% on sterling at 78.73p, while it remained unchanged against the common currency at 91.7 euro cents.

The greenback meanwhile edged up just 0.01% on the yen, changing hands at JPY 145.58.