Weekly review
The FTSE 100 finished the week up 19.97 points at 7,510.20.
Equity view
Tritax Big Box on Friday said it had exchanged contracts to build a new logistics sorting centre in Merseyside for £68.7m.
Millennium & Copthorne Hotels chief executive Jennifer Fox has agreed to step down after less than four months.
Budget airline easyJet said it expected to deliver full year pre-tax profit of between £570m - £580m, in the upper half of previous guidance and despite the impact of strike action and air traffic restrictions across Europe.
United Utilities said it had increased revenue in the first half of the year but statutory profits will take a hit from extra investment to cope with the long, hot summer.
Safety, health and environmental technology group Halma said all its sectors delivered as-expected organic constant currency revenue and profit growth in the six months from April 1.
Pensions administration specialist Equiniti said it had extended its contract with the Cabinet Office and buying out the government department's stake in a joint venture for £8m.
TUI Group said its financial year was closing as expected with customer numbers increasing despite the heatwave in Northern Europe.
United Utilities was set to update investors and analysts on some of the key themes of its business plan for the 2020-2025 regulatory period, AMP7, on Thursday, having submitted its plan for AMP7 on 3 September.
Elementis on Wednesday said production at its US Chromium facility in North Carolina had been disrupted as a result of Hurricane Florence, although the impact on 2018 earnings would be “modest”.
Closed-end investment fund Vietnam Enterprise Investments announced its reviewed interim results for the six months ended 30 June on Wednesday, with its net asset value per share falling 3.6% in dollar terms to $6.81, trailing the VN Index by 1.1% and reflecting “volatile” market conditions over the second quarter according to the board.
Boohoo increased its guidance for annual revenue growth as the online fashion retailer reported first-half profit up by more than a fifth.
Hornby said trading was on track to meet its expectations as the model train maker seeks to put a run of bad results behind it.
Imperial Brands said its tobacco business was enjoying "much stronger" sales in the second half of the year and said it plans to launch its heat-not-burn tobacco product early in 2019.
Close Brothers reported a “good performance” for the year ended 31 July in its preliminary results on Tuesday, with a 4% increase in adjusted operating profit to £278.6m.
Polymetal has been classified as “a leader” in the diversified metals sector by independent environmental, social and governance (ESG) research and ratings firm Sustainalytics, the company announced on Tuesday.
Glencore will buy back another $1bn of shares, it said on Tuesday as the commodities colossus approached the end of its previous $1bn share buyback.
Drax confirmed on Monday that it is in talks with Spain’s Iberdrola about the potential acquisition of a UK portfolio of pumped storage, renewable hydro and gas-fired generation assets.
The exploration arm of French energy giant Total has unearthed a major gas discovery at its Glendronach site among the West Shetland islands, also giving a boost to UK partners Ineos and SSE, which each own 20%.
AstraZeneca announced positive results from the phase III DECLARE-TIMI 58 cardiovascular outcomes trial for ‘Farxiga’ dapagliflozin, which it said was the broadest SGLT2 inhibitor cardiovascular outcome trial conducted to date.
Great Portland Estates announced the appointment of Richard Mully as non-executive chairman on Monday, with effect from 1 February.
Economic news
In UK data Gfk Consumer Confidence missed expectations, falling to -9 from -7 in August, versus the -8 consensus estimate.
Business confidence bounced back across Britain in September, following the nine-month low recorded in August, according to a survey from Lloyds Bank.
Chancellor Philip Hammond said he will announce his autumn budget on 29 October, the first on a Monday for over half a decade.
Even just half-hour delays at UK ports and the Irish border post-Brexit could lead to a wave of British firms going bankrupt, new research warned on Wednesday.
The UK newspaper industry has called for tech giants to pay a licence fee to ensure that news media publishers are properly rewarded for their use of their content by companies such as Facebook or Google.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May has ruled out a general election before the Brexit date in March 2019 saying it’s not in “the national interest”.
Criminals have stolen a total of £503.4m in authorised and unauthorised fraud from UK bank customers in the first half of 2018.
Large supermarkets and manufacturers are committing to reduce the annual £20bn food waste bill in half by 2030.
Manufacturing orders have fallen to a four-month low, a survey from the Confederation of British Industry revealed on Monday.
Theresa May will face pressure on Monday as Brexiters will urge the Prime Minister and her cabinet to ditch the Brexit Chequers plan after her meeting with EU leaders in Salzburg last week.
International events
Danish police cut off access to the island of Zeland, where the country's capital, Copenhagen, is located, as part of a major police operation.
Italy's populist coalition government has agreed to target a deficit of 2.4% of gross domestic product for the next three years, with worries about the implications sending the country's stocks plummeting on Friday.
The World Trade Organization have cut their forecast for global commerce for 2018 and 2019 on Thursday due to negative effects coming from the trade tensions between China and the US.
Orders for goods made to last more than three year soared last month in the US, boosted by orders for civilian and military aircraft.
The EU, China, Russia and Iran have set out a plan to dodge US sanctions against the Middle Eastern country and save the nuclear deal signed in 2015.
China's vice commerce minister said trade talks with the US are complicated at the moment and accused the US of bullying China and holding “a knife to its neck”.
Business confidence in Germany deteriorated less than expected in September, according to a survey released by the Ifo Institute on Monday.
China has refused to continue trade negotiations with the US until President Donald Trump stops threatening further tariffs.
Europe's single currency bounded higher in mid-afternoon trading on Monday, after European Central Bank chief, Mario Draghi, said that the stable outlook for headline consumer prices masked stronger underlying price pressures.
Carmaker Volvo has halted its truck assembly lines in Iran over US sanctions that are preventing it from being paid, a company spokesman said on Monday.