News & Insight • Weekly Newsletters

23 February 2024 | William Buckhurst | Charlie Todd

That Was The Week That Was

MACRO

• Speaking on Tuesday, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey stated that the BoE could start cutting rates before inflation reaches 2%. Bailey stated that market expectations for rate cuts this year were “not unreasonable” and that he was “comfortable with a profile that has cuts in it” but noted that when and by how much rates are reduced depends on further progress being made on tackling the stickier elements of inflation
• Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s January meeting showed that policy makers in the US are still cautious around cutting rates

COMPANY NEWS

• Nvidia shares continued on their stratospheric rise as the world’s most valuable chip company reported a 265% increase in quarterly revenues. Revenues were $22.1bn in the fourth quarter far exceeding analysts’ expectations of $20.4bn. Net income rose 770% to $12.3bn
• Sanofi shares finished higher after it was reported that several private equity firms were looking at acquiring its consumer health business
• Walmart reported fourth quarter results with a beat on both earnings and revenue as e-commerce sales rose by 17%, above forecasts. But the company guided to Q1 earnings below consensus
• AstraZeneca closed up after releasing positive trial results. The company stated that trial data indicated its drug Tagrisso slowed disease progression in patients with advanced lung cancer, with the trial showing statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in progression free survival for patients whose cancer was unable to be removed by surgery
• Newmont Corp.’s shares fell close to a five-year low after the world’s largest gold mining company said it was planning to sell assets and cut its dividend
• Nestle sales reached CHF 93.0bn reflecting organic growth of 7.2% but this was driven by price hikes of 7.5% offsetting a small decline in overall volumes

INVESTMENT TRUST WATCH

Further corporate activity in the alternative income / REIT space as Urban Logistics makes an approach for abrdn Property Income REIT

THIS WEEK IN HISTORY

1947: Polaroid demonstrated its first instant camera. Polaroid was the leading tech stock of its day. However, the company was never able to adapt to the rise in digital photography, and would be bankrupt by 2001

1971: Decimalisation day in the UK. The pounds keeps its old name and value but is split into 100 “new” pence each of which was worth 2.4 “old” pence. This wasn’t new: China had been using a decimal system for over 2000 years, and Russia since the early 18^th century

MARKET DATA

 As at 23^rd February 2024. Source: InFront

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