Persimmon paints confident outlook, Whitbread reiterates targets
By Benjamin Chiou
Date: Tuesday 13 Jan 2026
(Sharecast News) - LONDON PRE-OPEN
Futures are pointing to a flat start on the FTSE 100 on Tuesday, with the UK benchmark tipped to slip just 0.05% from Monday's record closing high of 10,140.70.
STOCKS TO WATCH
UK housebuilder Persimmon said it expected annual earnings to be at the upper end of forecasts after a bigger-than-expected rise in home completions. It added that the start to 2026 had been "encouraging" after a Boxing Day marketing campaign against a challenging market.Completions for calendar 2025 rose 12% to 11,905, with average selling prices up 4%. Persimmon is guiding for underlying profit before tax of £415m to £440m, according to a company compiled estimate.
Whitbread reiterated its full-year outlook on Tuesday, after solid demand for its hotels during the third quarter helped offset weaker food and drink sales. The blue chip owner of Premier Inn and Brewers Fayre, among others, posted a 2% increase in group sales in the 13 weeks to 27 November to £781m. Within that, accommodation sales sparked 4% - supported by a 16% jump in revenues in Germany - while food and beverage fell 3%. Coupled with current trading in line with expectations and improved cost efficiencies, Whitbread said it remained "confident" in its full-year outlook. On a like-for-like basis, third-quarter sales rose 3%.
Real estate investor LondonMetric Property has snapped up nine Premier Inn hotels from Whitbread for £89m, making the hospitality group the fourth-largest occupier of LondonMetric assets. The 955-bedroom portfolio, which is focused around the South East of England, generates an annual rent of £5.0m, taking LondonMetric's total annual rents from Whitbread to £11.3m.
NEWSPAPER ROUND-UP
Russia is already working to circumvent the latest US sanctions to ensure India can continue to import high levels of cheap Russian crude oil, according to industry analysts. Since the outbreak of the Ukraine war, India has become the world's second largest purchaser of Russian crude oil, which has been heavily discounted due to the impact of western sanctions. US-India relations have plummeted in recent months as Donald Trump has attempted to coerce India into halting its reliance on cheap Russian oil, accusing it of bankrolling Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine. - Guardian
Donald Trump has said any country that does business with Iran will face a tariff rate of 25% on trade with the US, as Washington weighs a response to the situation in Iran, which is seeing its biggest anti-government protests in years. "Effective immediately, any Country doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran will pay a Tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with the United States of America," the US president said in a post on Truth Social on Monday. Tariffs are paid by US importers of goods from those countries. Iran has been heavily sanctioned by Washington for years. - Guardian
Donald Trump's crackdown on credit cards risks pushing millions of poor Americans into financial crisis, some of Wall Street's most powerful groups have warned. Mr Trump is pressing ahead with plans to temporarily cap credit card interest rates for 12 months at 10pc from January 20. However, the proposal is facing a backlash over fears it will force banks to cancel cards and pull back lending to consumers with the lowest credit scores. - Telegraph
The Army is preparing to buy US Black Hawk helicopters in a move putting thousands of British defence jobs at risk, Reform UK has suggested. Richard Tice, the party's deputy leader, claimed there had been a "rearguard action in the Army" to purchase the American military helicopter at the expense of UK-made equipment. - Telegraph
The current state of the UK labour market is a far cry from the boom it enjoyed in the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis. In the spring and summer of 2022, cumulatively across the economy, businesses were trying to hire 1.3 million people, by far the highest amount since records began and up by 500,000 compared to the end of 2019. - The Times
US CLOSE
US stocks erased earlier losses to push into positive territory by the close, sending the Dow and S&P 500 to new all-time highs, though markets traded within a narrow range amid heightened policy risk at home and rising geopolitical tensions overseas.
The Dow and S&P 500 both rose just 0.2% to new record closes of 49,590.20 and 6,977.27, respectively, topping earlier highs set on Friday. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq gained 0.3% to 23,733.90, its highest since 3 November and within a whisker of the record close of 23,958.47 reached on 29 October.
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