Morrisons sales rise in first half, Dixons Carphone considering listing Nordics business

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open 14 points lower on Thursday, having closed up 1.39% at 6,012.84 on Wednesday.

Stocks to watch

Supermarket chain Morrisons reported an 8.7% rise in like-for-like first-half sales despite lower fuel sales hitting revenues. The company deferred its special dividend, but lifted its interim payout by 5.7% to 2.04p a share. Revenue fell 1.1% to £8.73bn. Pre-tax profit fell 28.2% to £145m.

Dixons Carphone said it was considering a minority listing of its Nordics business as the electricals retailer reported strong trading supported by online sales. Like-for-like sales rose 14% in the 15 weeks to 29 August as online sales increased 124%. Dixons said it was considering a partial share offering for its Nordics business in 2021.

International Public Partnerships reported a fall in its net asset value in its first half on Thursday, to 149.2p per share, from 150.6p at the start of the period. The FTSE 250 firm said its IFRS profit before tax was £35.4m on 30 June, down from £83.7m a year earlier, which it put down to the recognition of the BeNEX transaction in 2019, as well as decrease in valuation this year as a result of Covid-19 uncertainty. Its board hiked the interim dividend increase by 2.5% to 3.68p per share.

Newspaper round-up

The number of people going back to work in offices has flatlined in the past two months despite the government push to get more workers into cities to protect Britain’s biggest urban economies from collapse. According to analysis of mobile phone tracking data by the Centre for Cities think tank, worker footfall across 63 of the UK’s largest town and city centres was just 17% of pre-lockdown levels at the end of June, remained at 17% at the start of August and was still at 17% in the last full week of the month. - Guardian

The Church of England’s pension board, which manages more than £2.8bn ($AU5bn) in retirement savings, has poured pressure on the board of Rio Tinto to take action against its chief executive over the global miner’s decision to blow up culturally significant 46,000-year-old rock shelters in Australia. Speaking to the BBC on Wednesday, the pension board’s director of ethics and engagement, Adam Matthews, stopped short of calling for CEO Jean-Sébastien Jacques to be sacked but said investors felt a decision by the Rio board to cut the bonuses of executives in response to the scandal was not sufficient. - Guardian

Goldman Sachs is seeking to bring its 38,000 staff worldwide back to the office part time on a rota system as the firm kicks off the next stage of plans for a return to work. Chief executive David Solomon told employees in a memo that they will be contacted by managers in coming weeks with the aim of introducing team rotations, so that everyone who wants to is able to go into their office. - Telegraph

St James’s Place and Columbia Threadneedle have become the first asset managers to lift a suspension of withdrawals from frozen property funds. Funds holding nearly £12 billion of office buildings, hotels, shops and warehouses halted trading in March because an effective shutdown of the property market at the start of the pandemic meant that their assets could not be accurately valued. - The Times

London offices worth almost £5 billion are for sale ahead of what has been called a “key” few weeks that will test the resilience of the commercial property market. Knight Frank, the estate agent and property consultancy, said that in addition to the £4.9 billion of available stock, nearly £3 billion of buildings had been placed “under offer” by purchasers and were close to being sold. - The Times

US close

Wall Street stocks closed sharply higher on Wednesday, putting a halt to a sell-off started late last week that ended with the Nasdaq entering correction territory.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.60% at 27,940.47, while the S&P 500 was 2.01% firmer at 3,398.96 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 2.71% stronger at 11,141.56.

The Dow closed 439.58 points higher on Wednesday, a marked turnaround from the beating taken by major indices in the previous session as stocks put on their worst performance since March.

Wednesday's positive moves came despite news that AstraZeneca's late-stage trial of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate had been paused as a result of a suspected serious adverse reaction in a participant.

Also in focus, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden proposed a new offshoring penalty that would lead to a 28% corporate tax rate, plus a 10% "offshoring penalty surtax" on profits made by a US company overseas for sales back to the US. He also called for a 10% tax credit for companies that make investments that create jobs for American workers and a 21% minimum tax on all foreign earnings.