The FTSE 100 sank on Wednesday, reversing much of the gains enjoyed in a two-day rally driven by the reopening of global economies. The FTSE 100 traded as low as 5,904 in the first hour of trade on Wednesday as the market digested the latest economic data from the UK and Europe. The UK economy shrank 2% in the first quarter but a relatively buoyant manufacturing sector before the lockdown meant the UK avoided a complete collapse. “That actually means the UK avoided the kind of Q1 contraction seen by its peers – France fell 5.8%, Italy 4.7% and Spain 5.2%. However, and it is a sledgehammer of a however, that is almost purely down to when lockdown was implemented rather than any actual outperformance, meaning even more pain is going to be felt in Q2,” said Connor Campbell, analyst at Spreadex. “Nevertheless, those numbers were better than expected, allowing the FTSE to keep its losses at the lower end of what was seen in the Eurozone. That still meant the UK index fell 1.3%, dragging it back below the 6000 mark it hit following Rishi Sunak’s furlough scheme extension on Tuesday.” UK bond yields turned negative inline with European bonds as the market priced in the possibility of negative interest rates. Negative rates aren’t something that have been discussed publicly by the Bank of England, but could become a reality if the economic downturn persists. With interest rates at 0.1% the BoE has little left in terms of option to fight a persistently low inflation and may be forced to follow the European Central Bank in taking rates negative. Taylor Wimpey was one of the few FTSE 100 risers after the housebuilder announced it would reopen sales operation next week. Taylor Wimpey was one of the first listed house builders to outline plans for reopening sites and their sales operations will now allow for revenue generation once again. Berkeley Group and Barratt Developments were also among the early risers.

Land Securities (LON:LAND) shares fell on Tuesday after the company reported increased losses and scrapped the final dividend. Full year losses before tax increased to £837m, up from a loss of £123m in 2019. The impact if COVID-19 meant the Real Estate Investment Trust had to set aside provisions for disruption to rental income in the coming year. Land Securities also had to record an 8.8% drop in the valuation of their property portfolio, amounting to £1,178m. The company said it had experience an increase level of rent deferrals and expected rent payments to decline over the coming year. The disappointing outlook drove the board to scrap the final dividend in an effort to conserve cash through the crisis. A lot of the attractiveness of Land Securities and other REITs was the dividend paid from rental income earned from the underlying property portfolio. Land Securities operates a diverse UK-focused property portfolio comprising of retail, leisure and workspace. “I join Landsec at an extraordinary time,” said Mark Allan, Chief Executive of Land Securities. “The effects of Covid-19 are accelerating ongoing structural trends across the real estate sector, while its longer-term societal and economic consequences are yet to be determined. Landsec’s strong balance sheet and resilient operational performance have enabled us to respond to immediate challenges posed by Covid-19 with speed and decisiveness. “Our £80m rent relief fund has offered targeted support to occupiers, alongside broader options of rent deferrals and monthly payments, and our £500,000 of community grants is providing financial assistance to our charity partners.” “I am confident Landsec is approaching the future from a position of strength. We are prepared to be bold in our thinking as we navigate both the challenges and opportunities arising in the long term from changing market trends and will not lose sight of our wider sustainability objectives. We will continue to lead the sector on major issues such as climate change and remain committed to acting as a force for good in the communities in which we operate.”  

Bidstack (LON:BIDS) has announced a collaboration with Codemasters to deliver native advertising for the game Dirt 5. Bidstack are a digital advertising specialist that focus on native advertising in computer games and the Codemaster agreement builds on a number of other deals including an agreement with Epic Games, the company behind the hit game Fortnite. Today’s announcement relates to advertising to be placed in the Dirt 5 game for the next generations of both the Xbox and Playstation consoles. The game is set to be released in October 2020. “It’s great to be working with Codemasters, using our technology to deliver native in-game advertising for DIRT 5, which is the first racing game to be confirmed for the all-new Xbox Series X,” said James Draper, CEO of Bidstack. “The launch of the Xbox Series X and PlayStation®5 later this year will bring a new level of gaming to gamers throughout the world. Where our technology is deployed within the games, brands and the global advertising agencies we are dealing with will be able to engage with gamers in a completely natural way.” In addition to signed deals with games producers, Bidstack have inked a deal with advertising agency Dentsu Aegis. Establishing the infrastructure through deals such as the one with Codemaster’s provides Bidstack with the digital real estate to place adverts, but essential to the success of their model is securing agency agreements to ensure channels to brands. Part of the distribution of adverts through Bidstack’s technology involves a programmatic platform that allows clients to manage their inventory through a self-serve backend similar to interfaces offered by giants such as Google and Facebook. However, despite the revolutionary approach employed by Bidstack the company only posted revenue of £140,000 in 2019. The development costs incurred meant Bidstack’s adjusted loss before tax of £5.3m. The company had a cash balance of £3.1m as of 31st December.

The FTSE 100 rose in early trade on Monday as major global moved to ease lockdown measures to help restart economies. The FTSE 100 traded as much as 0.9% higher at 5,994 in the first hour of trade on Monday, before selling off to turn negative on the day. London’s leading index was closed on Friday and missed a strong session in the US following the release of the monthly US jobs report. US Non-Farm payrolls recorded a drop of 20.5 million jobs in the United States in April, which was marginally better than the expected 21.5 million. The better than expected figure sparked a rally in global equities and followed through to a strong session on Monday in Europe. A stronger jobs report. although abysmal, analysts looked through the numbers to a potential recovery. “Going in we knew we were going to see staggering job losses. But what we are looking at are temporary job losses, which gives us hope that those jobs could come back. But overall it’s a bleak report,” said Charlie Ripley, Senior Market Strategist at Allianz. The post Non-farm payrolls rally built on steady gains last week that materialised as major global economies began to reopen their economies. The UK was the latest country to lay down plans for a gradual easing of lockdown measures as Boris Johnson changed his message to ‘stay alert’ in a speech on Sunday. In a speech highly criticised for its lack of clarity, Johnson said some workers could begin to return to work and people were allowed to take unlimited exercise. The Prime Minister also announced a 14-day quarantine for people flying into the UK. This hit the UK’s listed airlines with easyJet over 7% weaker and IAG shedding 2.5%. Ryanair was down 1.5%. Johnson Matthey was the FTSE 100 risers as the lockdown easings increased the prospect of higher levels of car manufacturing. Despite the potential for increased economic activity, there are warnings the recovery may not be as sharp as people had previously thought. “The market’s confidence in positive news on coronavirus is looking overly optimistic and there is a sizeable risk that the opening up of the economy will be much slower than many people think. But we do expect the trough to be reached in the second quarter of the year, followed by significant improvement in corporate earnings in the second half,” said Ewout van Schaick, Head of Multi Asset at NN Investment Partners.

BT Group (LON:BT) cancelled their dividend on Thursday as the telecoms group announced an accelerated investment programme amid the COVID-19 crisis. BT said they would not pay a dividend until 2022 as they invested in the adoption of 5G and increased the rollout of Fibre internet. The market did not take the announcement well and BT shares traded as low as 101p in early trade on Thursday, down over 10%, before recovering. Notwithstanding the scrapping of the dividend until 2022, BT posted disappointing full year earnings as adjusted EBITDA fell 3% to £7.9bn. Revenue also fell 3%, but this was broadly inline with expectations. “BT had a positive year delivering results in line with expectations and completing our £1.6bn phase 1 transformation programme, one year ahead of schedule,” said Philip Jansen, Chief Executive “Covid-19 has changed everybody’s world and I am immensely proud of how BT has responded to the challenges the Covid-19 crisis has presented. Our strong and resilient networks, both fixed and mobile, have proved critical to the continuing functioning of the UK economy, providing unrivalled connectivity and services for the nation.” “Of course, Covid-19 is affecting our business, but the full impact will only become clearer as the economic consequences unfold over the next 12 months. Due to Covid-19, BT is not providing guidance for 2020/21, at this time.” “BT has the best network infrastructure in the UK. We have the leading 4G network and are rapidly expanding our leadership position in 5G, that today covers over 80 towns and cities. We have the largest and most extensive fixed network and are leading the UK on the next generation Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network where we now pass 2.6 million premises.” “Today we are announcing a rapid acceleration of our FTTP build with a target of 20 million premises passed by the mid- to late-2020s, including a significant build in rural areas.” Jansen continued to explain the decision to cut the dividend was part of a broader investment plan that involved the roll out of 5G. “In order to deal with the potential consequences of Covid-19, allow us to invest in FTTP and 5G, and to fund the major 5-year modernisation programme, we have also taken the difficult decision to suspend the dividend until 2022 and re-base thereafter,” Jansen said. “These decisions, particularly on the dividend, network investment and transformation are key to underpinning BT’s investment case; driving network strength, competitive strength and financial strength, providing more clarity to the market, and driving long-term value for shareholders. I am confident that these decisions position us really positively for the future.” The difficultly in coming to the decision to cut the dividend was reiterated the the BT Chairmen who said BT realised the “importance of dividends to our shareholders” who will now not see any income from their investment in BT until 2022.

Shares in Virgin Money rose sharply on Wednesday despite the bank setting aside £232m in provisions for the impact of COVID-19. The £232m hit meant, like the UK’s top traditional banks, challenger bank Virgin Money’s profit was almost entirely wiped out by the negative impact of COVID-19. Virgin Money’s profit fell to £120m, but would have been £352 before the impairment charge due to coronavirus. A profit of £352m would have represented a 3% drop in first half profit from a year ago, which was expected due to a reduction in net interest margin. The market has been rewarding those banks who recorded strong performance before the impact of COVID-19, and this was the case with Virgin Money. Virgin Money shares were up as much as 11% before falling back in afternoon trade. “The COVID-19 outbreak and its impact on the nation’s businesses and consumers has markedly changed the operating environment, driving an increased impairment charge of £232m against future loan losses and a reduction in underlying profitability,” said David Duffy, Chief Executive Office of Virgin Money. “While we delivered a resilient performance and continued to make good progress on our self-help strategy in the first half of the year, our primary objective now is safeguarding the health and well-being of our colleagues, customers and communities while also protecting the bank.” The Virgin Money CEO continued to say the impact of the pandemic will persist for a prolonged period but he felt Virgin Money had the necessary measures in place to continue delivering their services. “Amid the uncertainty, it is clear that the pandemic will have long-lasting and wide-ranging effects on how companies do business and on what customers will expect from the organisations they choose to interact with.” “Although the full impacts from the COVID-19 outbreak will take time to emerge, I’m confident that our agility, digital capabilities and focus on disrupting the status quo will make us stronger and well-equipped to support changing customer needs and play our part in the UK’s economic recovery.”

Shares in Halfords (LON:HFD) rose over 19% on Wednesday after the group announced sales that exceed the firm’s own expectations. Sales for the four weeks to 1st May were 23% lower than in the same period last year on a like-for-like basis, beating company estimates. The stronger than expected performance meant the company said it now expected profit to be towards the upper end of their previously guide £50-55m profit before tax. The strength was seen in the company’s cycling business as key worker commuters changed their travel arrangements through the coronavirus pandemic. Cycling has been a big theme for Halfords in 2020 as they actioned plans to close Cycle Republic and focus on their online business Tredz and the core in-store Halfords offering. Graham Stapleton, CEO of Halfords, commented on the update: “The health and safety of our colleagues and our customers remains our top priority. I am immensely proud of all our colleagues for their continued hard work and dedication to help keep the country moving. “There may be less journeys now but those that are undertaken are even more important. As the UK’s largest provider of motoring and cycling products and services, we take our responsibility to keep the country moving seriously. We remain focused on providing essential services during lockdown, supporting key workers, including serving over 21,000 NHS front line workers so far, as well as the wider population who need to travel. Cycling has provided commuters with an important alternative to public transport and consequently we have seen significant growth within our Cycle2Work programme, cementing our position as the market-leading business in this segment.” “Whilst trading since our last update at the end of March has been better than anticipated, driven by a strong performance in cycling, considerable uncertainty remains and as such we continue to take all necessary measures to preserve cash and protect our financial position. I am confident the actions we are taking now will put the business in a strong position when we emerge from the crisis and enable us to continue to deliver on our strategic transformation in the medium term”.

ITV’s (LON:ITV) advertising revenue crumbled in April as advertising demand fell by 42% due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The update on the impact of COVID-19 on April’s trading was included in ITV’s first quarter trading state which revealed a 7% drop in total external revenue in the three months to 31st March. Broadcast revenue was up 2% during the quarter as ITV studios revenue fell by 11% as COVID-19 restrictions started to take hold. However, as ITV moved into April, when lockdowns were in full swing, the ITV Studios business saw most work grind to halt which is likely to have an impact on earnings for ITV’s Q2. In addition to a pause in the Studio’s business, advertising revenue will be materially impacted due to advertiser uncertainty surrounding coronavirus. The reduction in demand was felt across most of ITV’s advertising categories although the company did report some positives through the COVID-19 crisis. Interaction with ITV’s library of content increased and subscription activity in Britbox also increased. Simulcast viewing jumped 112% in the first quarter as overly online viewing rose by 77%. ITV said they were working with advertisers on new and innovative marketing solutions but didn’t give any guidance or outlook for Q2 due to the ongoing distraction associated with coronavirus. Carolyn McCall, ITV Chief Executive, said: “ITV has taken swift and decisive action to manage and mitigate the impact of COVID-19, by focusing on our people and their safety, and by continuing to reduce costs and tightly manage our cashflow and liquidity. We are also ensuring that we continue to inform and entertain our viewers and stay close to our advertisers. Everyone at ITV has responded extremely well to the challenges we are facing.” “We are now very focused on emerging from this crisis in a strong position, continuing to offer advertisers effective marketing opportunities and making preparations to restart productions safely.” Shares in ITV (LON:ITV) rose 4.7% in early trade on Wednesday.