Stocks to open higher on election results, Shell issues update
By Josh White
Date: Friday 05 Jul 2024
(Sharecast News) - London open
The FTSE 100 was expected to open 17 points higher on Friday, having closed up 0.86% on Thursday at 8,241.26.
London stocks were set to rise at the open on Friday as Brits woke up to the first Labour government in 14 years.
At 0655 BST, Labour had a confirmed 408 up 209, while the Tories were on 113, down 242.
The Liberal Democrats were on 69, a gain of 61 and the SNP held on to eight seats, a loss of 37, in a shocking night where it surrendered seats to a resurgent Labour north of the English border in a voter backlash over scandals within the SNP.
Britain's Labour Party won the General Election and looked to be on course for a massive 170 seat majority
Stocks to watch
A second-quarter outlook update released by Shell on Friday included production estimates of 940,000 to 980,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day for integrated gas, and 1.72 million to 1.82 million equivalent daily barrels for upstream, with various financial projections including taxation and operational expenses. The marketing, and chemicals and products segments expected stable results compared to previous quarters, while renewable and energy solutions anticipated a potential slight loss. Shell forecast overall tax payments of $3.1bn to $3.9bn, significant non-cash post-tax impairments mainly in Singapore and Rotterdam, and highlighted broad uncertainty in derivative movements and working capital estimations.
Newspaper round-up
Publicans have called on the Co-op to pull a "disgraceful" TV advert that urges the supermarket's customers to watch the Euro 2024 football tournament at home rather than going to the pub. The Co-op Food ad says it is hard to see the TV screen in the pub and suggests customers instead "stay in" and take advantage of a beer and pizza deal the supermarket is promoting. - Guardian
British electricity prices were double those paid in France and Spain in the spring, with the steel industry saying the disadvantage could hinder UK efforts to switch to greener technology. UK companies paid nearly £66 per megawatt hour (MWh) for wholesale electricity in the second quarter of 2024, well over double the French and Spanish equivalents in the same period, according to analysis of industry data by the lobby group UK Steel. - Guardian
British Gas has filed a record number of winding-up petitions against small businesses, threatening to tip restaurants and care homes into bankruptcy. British Gas Trading sought winding-up orders against 111 companies in 2023 and a further 60 were filed so far this year. It marks a significant increase on previous years, with just 38 filed in 2022 and 13 in 2021. - Telegraph
Tata Steel has snubbed unions and closed one of two blast furnaces at its biggest plant under plans to switch to a greener form of production. The company said it had ceased operations of blast furnace 5 in Port Talbot, south Wales, as part of its restructuring programme to stem "unsustainable" losses of more than £1 million a day. The decommissioning of the blast furnace and associated facilities started immediately after the last liquid iron had been produced. The second blast furnace is due to be shut down in September. - The Times
Two of the biggest hitters in private equity, KKR and CVC, are among the bidders to have put forward offers of more than €3 billion for B&B Hotels. Goldman Sachs' investment division, which is looking to offload the hotels chain, is understood to have received a handful of proposals pitched between €3.2 billion and €3.3 billion. - The Times
US close
Stocks on Wall Street were closed on Thursday for the 4 July Independence Day holiday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average had finished a truncated session down 0.06% on Wednesday, at 39,308.00.
At the same time, the S&P 500 was up 0.51% at 5,537.02, as the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.88% to 18,188.30.
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