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Fashion chain Quiz (QUIZ.L) has revealed it swung to a loss for the past year after sales slumped in the face of cost-of-living pressures on customers.

Sheraz Ramzan, chief executive of the business, said its performance had been “disappointing” but stressed it was committed to its turnaround strategy.

Quiz reported a pre-tax loss of £6.7m for the year to 31 March in the delayed update, as it slid from a £2.3m profit a year earlier. It came as revenues dropped by 10.6% to £82m for the year.

The sales downturn was largely due to “the impact of cost of-living pressures on consumer demand”, the retailer said.

The group saw particularly weak sales online, which slid by 18% to £24.5m for the year.

Meanwhile, sales from stores and concessions were 8% lower at £41.7m.

It reported that its number of active customers declined by 19% to 521,000 for the year.

As the UK's business landscape continues to flourish, with a record-breaking 5.31 million active companies currently operating and 900 thousand new businesses established in 2023 alone, the demand for comprehensive business support services has never been higher.

Jestiyon, a leading provider of corporate services, is at the forefront of meeting this demand by offering a suite of solutions tailored to the needs of international entrepreneurs navigating the complexities of the UK market.

Ardıç Dağ, co-founder of Jestiyon, said:

The US economy did better than expected in the second quarter, with gross domestic product (GDP) growing at 3% rather than the 2.8% seen in the first reading.

The boost was due to a sharp upward adjustment to real consumer spending growth, from 2.2% to 2.9%, partially offset by smaller downward revisions to business investment, housing, and government spending.

Richard Flax, chief investment officer at wealth manager Moneyfarm, said:

The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback's performance against a basket of major currencies, edged lower in early Thursday trading as the rebound from the previous session lost momentum.

Ricardo Evangelista, senior analyst at ActivTrades, said:

The UK will officially enter a new trading bloc on 15 December, after ratification by Peru completed the requirements to join.

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) will eventually give British exporters tariff-free access to 11 countries, although it will only apply at first to the six who have ratified it: Japan, Singapore, Chile, New Zealand, Vietnam and now Peru.

The Department for Business and Trade estimates the deal will add £2bn to Britain’s annual GDP by 2040.

Douglas Alexander, the minster for Trade Policy, said: “This is good news for UK businesses, who are now one step closer to being able to take advantage of the opportunities our membership of CPTPP will bring.”

More deals under 4% are coming on the market, following the Bank of England's decision to cut interest rates, with another mortgage war looming that is set to benefit those trying to get on the property ladder.

The average rate on a two-year fixed deal this week stood at 5.74%, lower than last week's 5.89%, while rates for a five-year deal came in at 5.27%, also lower than the previous 5.31%, according to figures from Uswitch.

The Bank of England cut interest rates to 5% at its August Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting — the first reduction of the UK’s base rate in four years. In a finely balanced decision, five committee members voted in favour of cutting rates, versus four who preferred to keep them unchanged.

Mortgage rates could fall to 3.5% by the end of the year as markets are betting on two more interest rate cuts by the end of the year.

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Commenting on reports that the government intends to ban smoking from pub gardens and other outdoor spaces, Reem Ibrahim, acting director of communications at the Institute of Economic Affairs, said:

Here's a quick update on the top market movers so far today...

• Premier Inn owner Whitbread (WTB.L) was the top gainer on the FTSE 100 after an upgrade to 'outperform' by Bernstein.

• Close Brothers (CBG.L) surged after an upgrade to 'outperform' at RBC Capital Markets, while British Gas owner Centrica (CNA.L) was boosted by an upgrade to 'buy' at Jefferies.

• GSK (GSK.L) rose as it said the European Commission has approved Arexvy, the first respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine, for adults aged 50 to 59 at increased risk due to underlying medical conditions.

• Drax (DRX.L) was in the black as Ofgem closed its probe into the company's biomass profiling data after investigating whether or not the power station group failed to meet sustainability criteria of so-called Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs).

• IG Group (IGG.L) lost ground after Tom Sosnoff and Scott Sheridan sold 6.5 million shares in the company in a placing to a limited number of institutional investors. The placing represents around 1.8% of the existing share capital in the company. Sosnoff and Sheridan were co-founders of US online brokerage and trading education platform Tastytrade, which was acquired by IG in 2021 for $1bn.

Software company Salesforce (CRM) posted second quarter results after the US market close on Wednesday that beat Wall Street estimates on sales, operating margins and earnings.

Salesforce posted net sales of $9.33bn for the second quarter, above an estimate of $9.23bn.

Shares popped in after-hours trading, up 5%.

Sales increased 11% in Europe, 16% in Asia-Pacific, and 8% in its Americas segment in the second quarter. This marked a turnaround from the previous quarter when the company posted its first sales estimate miss since 2006.

"What I think a lot of people are excited about right now is the beat on adjusted operating margin,” Third Bridge analyst Charlie Miner said on Yahoo Finance.

The company also reported an adjusted operating margin of 33.7%, coming in above estimates of 31.94%.

“Profitability has become fully the focus for Salesforce over the last six quarters, you can't miss there right now, especially when [sales] growth is decelerating into the single digits as it is only the second time in their company history," Miner said.

Sainsbury's (SBRY.L) plans to create 1,000 jobs in Britain after reaching a deal to buy 10 Homebase stores to convert them into supermarkets.

The total investment, including buying the leases and spending on fitting them out, will be £130m, the company confirmed.

The first of the Homebase stores will reopen as supermarkets next summer, with all of them to be completed by the end of next year.

Simon Roberts, Sainsbury’s chief executive, said:

Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B) became the first US company outside of the tech sector to surpass $1trn in market value.

Shares in Warren Buffet’s company were trending in pre-market trading as it hit $1tn (£756bn) in market value — the first US company outside of the tech sector to reach the milestone.

The $1tn threshold was crossed just two days before the “Oracle of Omaha” Buffet turns 94 years old.

Berkshire Hathaway comprises a $285bn stock portfolio that Buffett has built up over six decades, making him one of the richest people in the world.

In recent months, Berkshire Hathaway has been in selling mode. It cut its stake in Apple (AAPL) by 50% last quarter. On Tuesday, the company disclosed it had sold nearly 25 million Bank of America (BAC) shares worth close to $1bn.

Berkshire’s insurance, energy, manufacturing, retail and service businesses generated $22.8bn of profit in the first half of the year, up 26% from a year earlier.

Its rally this year has outpaced the S&P 500’s (^GSPC) gains, with the company off to one of its best annual starts in a decade. It’s gained 30% in 2024, while the market benchmark is up 17%.

The company isn’t that far behind the so-called Magnificent Seven — a gauge of the biggest tech stocks is up 34% this year.

Topping the list of the most valuable companies are Apple, Nvidia and Microsoft (MSFT), which all are worth more than $3tn. Other companies trading above $1tn include Alphabet (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN) and Meta (META).

UK-based startups raised $9bn funding through 704 venture capital (VC) deals announced during January-July 2024, which is a 7.9% year-on-year increase in funding value despite a 14.3% decline in deal volume.

This reflects an improving appetite for big-ticket investments in promising startups, positioning the UK as a resilient market in the global venture capital landscape, according to GlobalData a leading data and analytics company.

The analysis revealed that a total of 821 VC deals of worth $8.4bn were announced in the UK during January-July 2023.

Aurojyoti Bose, lead analyst at GlobalData, said:

The UK accounted for 7.3% share of the total number of VC deals announced globally during January-July while its share of the corresponding disclosed funding value stood at 6.2%.

Some of the notable VC funding deals announced in the UK included $1.05bn worth funding raised by Wayve Technologies, $1bn raised by credit technology company Abound, $200m raised by DNEG Group and $431m and $190m raised by digital bank Monzo in two different funding rounds.

UK stocks have been unloved for some time, compared with the tech-heavy US markets. But could things be turning around for these out-of-favour investments?

The FTSE 100 (^FTSE) is up 8% year-to-date, bolstered partly by a more stable political backdrop, as the Labour party won July's general election with a landslide victory.

And yet it still lags behind the US S&P 500 (^GSPC), which has risen 17% year-to-date. Over five years that difference in performance becomes even starker, with the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) up 126%, while S&P 500 has gained 95% in that time and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) has risen 59%.

This far outstrips a near 18% gain on the FTSE 100 over the last five years, with the Brexit vote having already dampened sentiment towards UK stocks, in addition to the economic and market fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The US indices also hold some of the world's most valuable companies, with Microsoft (MSFT) at a market capitalisation of $3.07tn (£2.32tn), which is larger than the market value of the entire FTSE 100 at £2.06tn, according to the London Stock Exchange website.

Read the full article here

UK builders completed only 38,400 new homes in the first three months of this year, according to the Office for National Statistics. This was the fewest finished since the worst of the COVID-19 lockdowns in the second quarter of 2020.

The figures were down from just over 45,000 in the same period of 2023, and from a post-lockdown high of more than 60,000 completions in the final three months of 2022.

New starts are also weak, with builders breaking ground on fewer than 30,000 new homes — an improvement on the previous quarter’s new starts.

It comes as the Labour government plans to build 1.5 million homes over the next five years, requiring an average pace of 300,000 per year, or 75,000 per quarter.

Regional inflation data has dragged down the euro to a one-month low today.

Kyle Chapman, FX markets analyst at Ballinger Group, said:

UK car manufacturing fell last month as firms switched production to new models, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said on Thursday.

Production dropped 14.4% in July “as model changeovers and temporary supply chain constraints restrict output”.

The industry produced 482,000 cars in the first seven months of the year, down 9% from 2023.

The SMMT said it was hoping that annual production will rise above 1 million cars next year as new models start production.

Mike Hawes, chief executive of the SMMT, said

Commenting on the Nvidia results, Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Matt Britzman said:

Nvidia (NVDA) shares tumbled despite exceeding expectations. The stock slipped on Wednesday night as the scale of its results beat was the smallest relative to forecasts in six quarters.

It reported record sales of $30bn (£22.7bn) in the quarter to 31 July and forecast a third quarter figure of $32.5bn.

Analysts were expecting EPS of $0.64 and revenue of $28.8 billion. That marks a 122% increase on the top line from a year ago; earnings rose 168% from the same quarter last year.

The company expects shipments of its current Hopper chips to "increase" in the second half of the year. Jensen Huang, the chipmaker's chief executive, described anticipation for the company’s next generation Blackwell AI chip as “incredible”.

The company has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI boom, with its stock market value soaring to more than $3tn.

Stocks in Asia mostly tracked US peers lower overnight after earnings from Nvidia dampened the outlook for the tech sector.

The Nikkei (^N225) was flat on the day in Japan, while the Hang Seng (^HSI) rose 0.5% in Hong Kong. The Shanghai Composite (000001.SS) was 0.5% down by the end of the session.

Across the pond on Wall Street, stocks closed lower last night as a pullback in big technology companies outweighed gains elsewhere in the market.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell 0.6% to 5,592.18, weighed down by drops in Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon. About 56% of the stocks in the benchmark index finished in the red.

The Dow Jones (^DJI), which was coming off two consecutive all-time highs, fell 0.4% to 41,091.42 and the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) which is heavily weighted with technology stocks, closed 1.1% lower at 17,556.03.

Meanwhile, in the bond market, the yield on benchmark 10-year Treasury notes rose to 3.84% from 3.83pc late on Tuesday.