JD Sports, Record and HSBC

“The FTSE 100 made strong gains in early trading as both sides in the EU referendum suspended campaigning after Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered. Bargain hunters came out in their droves following a particularly bad spell for blue-chips. Asian markets rallied but remained significantly lower on the week, while Wall Street ended an up-and-down session in positive territory,” says AJ Bell Investment Director Russ Mould.
“Football fever from the UEFA Euro Championships is giving JD Sports Fashion an added boost as it aims to build on last year’s record results. The group is well positioned to deliver an excellent first half and while it faces tough comparatives for the remainder of the year, the strong start puts it on track to meet current forecasts.

“Currency manager Record has maintained its dividend despite a 10% fall in pre-tax profits. Record is operating in a challenging market environment with sentiment being driven more by political events and expectations around central bank policy than by longer-term economic factors. Against this backdrop, revenues were maintained at £21.1m and while total expenditure increased to £14.1m this was principally due to the firm wide 10% salary increase in May last year.

“Banking stocks rebounded with Barclays, Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered locking out the top slots on the blue-chip board in early trading. The exception was HSBC which faces a pre-tax hit of around $585m to settle a 14-year shareholder class action in the US. The action is based on events that took place prior to HSBC's acquisition of Household International in 2003. Its shares were up by a more modest 1.1%”
 

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