The FTSE 100 held onto gains on Wednesday after Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered a Spring Statement that offered more negatives than positives for investors.

London’s leading index had started the session on the front after UK inflation unexpectedly cooled to 2.8%, sending the pound lower against the dollar and providing support for London’s overseas earners. This was the key driver of the FTSE 100’s gains on Wednesday.

Many of Rachel Reeves’ Spring Budget’s headline-grabbing items were widely covered before today’s delivery, so changes to welfare and the NHS were of little consequence to markets.

However, a revised OBR UK growth forecast of just 1% for this year, down from 2%, was a major negative for investors. The FTSE 100 quickly gave up 20 points on the revised forecasts before recovering to trade up 0.2% at the time of writing.

Housebuilders were among the shares most impacted, with Taylor Wimpey, Persimmon, and Barratt Redrow giving up gains and turning negative during the Spring Statement before snapping back.

Notably, the government conceded it wouldn’t hit its prior 1.5m new homes target by revising its forecast of new home construction to 1.3m over the parliament.

Reeves again committed to reforming the planning systems, but this is old news, and investors would have been hoping for more from the Chancellor.

“Reforming the planning system is obviously important,” said Paresh Raja, CEO of Market Financial Solutions.

“However, investors and developers are unlikely to commit to new projects unless they see a strong and growing economy that provides long-term confidence and a return on their investment. The OBR forecasts were a blow in this regard, and the onus must now be on turning the corner to turbo-charge GDP growth.”

BAE Systems pared earlier losses as Reeves outlined plans for the UK to become a defence ‘powerhouse’ and promised to increase defence spending to 2.5% in this parliament.

Shell again contributed to the FTSE 100’s gains on Wednesday, as investors continued to buy into the oil majors after it announced an eye-catching new strategy yesterday.

Imperial Brands was the top faller after releasing a soft trading update and lower profit guidance. Imperial Brands shares were down 3% at the time of writing.

Vistry shares dipped on Wednesday after the house builder revealed the damage caused by costing errors last year, pausing dividends as a result. 

Investors should not be surprised that Vistry has decided to scrap its final dividend after a string of profit warnings last year. Nonetheless, the news wasn’t taken well by the market, and shares were down over 6% at the time of writing.

Cost miscalculations at several sites in the South of England led to dramatic revisions of profit forecasts last year, which were confirmed in today’s full-year results.

“2024 was a year for Vistry investors to forget and by management’s own account, the group significantly underperformed financially in year, with several profit warnings causing the share price to crumble by more than half,” said Aarin Chiekrie, equity analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown

Profit before tax sank 35% compared to the prior year’s restated results on an adjusted basis and 64% on a reported basis. The results are nothing short of a catastrophe for the company after they started 2024 so well.

However, that’s now all largely priced in, and a 7% increase in completions will have provided some solace.

Investors would have been keen to see how the company performed in the early part of 2025, and unfortunately, the company’s performance in the first quarter so far has been disappointing.

Sales rates are falling and the order book has shrunk.

“2025 hasn’t got off to the best of starts either, with sales rates down significantly year-to-date as partner-funded transactions have pulled back,” Chiekrie explained.

“More recent government announcements have offered a glimmer of respite from the bad news, with an additional £2bn of funding promised for the affordable housing programme. This aligns well with Vistry’s strategy, which focuses on increasing volumes of affordable housing for UK buyers. Performance is expected to improve as the year progresses, but given its recent series of missteps, management will have to start delivering more good news if they want to rebuild investors’ confidence.”

GenIP shares rose on Wednesday after the Generative AI analytics company announced its second contract within a week.

The company has secured a $65,000 contact with a Singapore research institute following a period of marketing in Southeast Asia. 

Today’s award is part of a wider bid process the company alluded to in a recent update. 

The contract with the Singapore client is far smaller than a deal worth $350,000 with a Saudi Arabian client announced last week, but the ongoing bid process suggests their efforts in Asia may yield further wins before long.

GenIP shares were 11% higher at the time of writing. 

“We are delighted to partner with a leading research and innovation institution in Singapore to accelerate the commercialisation of new technological discoveries,” said Melissa Cruz, CEO of GenIP.

“This collaboration demonstrates the broad application of our technology evaluation services by supporting cutting-edge clinical and healthcare research and innovation. Furthermore, this contract underscores the significant size of the addressable market for our technology commercialisation services.”

In an announcement released in early March, GenIP suggested their pipeline of business could result in a ‘step change’ in revenue.

Although investors will want to see further evidence of this, recent developments would suggest they are well on the way to a material uptick in revenue generation.

Kingfisher shares sank on Tuesday after the DIY specialist announced falling sales and profit amid difficult trading conditions.

Despite increasing market share, Kingfisher’s sales fell 1.5% in the year to January 2025 and operating profit fell 29%.

The results were a real kick in the teeth for investors, and shares were down over 13% at the time of writing.

“Kingfisher is stuck in reverse gear. The B&Q owner is one of the most shorted stocks on the UK market as hedge funds bet that its problems can’t be fixed in the current fragile retail environment. They have been right so far, with the shares slumping even further on its latest set of results,” Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.

Thierry Garnier, Chief Executive Officer of Kingfisher, used the first line of his comment on results to highlight market share growth in all six of their key regions. Although this shows Kingfisher are doing a good job of increasing their prominence in the industry, the fact is that the industry they operate in is facing extreme pressure.

“The B&Q and owner has been turning the screw on its competitors and eked out market share growth in all regions, but it is profit that investors really care about,” said Derren Nathan, head of equity research Hargreaves Lansdown.

“There’s only so long that discounting can be sustained for. France in particular was impacted, with retail profit slumping over 30%, with Poland being the bright spot. However, the UK still dominates and here performance was broadly flat. With higher labour costs around the corner and consumer sentiment under pressure, the Group has come out with conservative guidance for this year’s pre-tax profit in the £480mn-£540mn range, 6% behind forecasts at the mid-point.

Innovative Eyewear Inc. (NASDAQ:LUCY), the developer of smart eyewear under multiple premium brands including Lucyd, Nautica, Eddie Bauer, and Reebok, has announced its financial results for the full year 2024, highlighting substantial revenue growth and margin improvements.

The company reported net revenue of $1,636,440 for the year ended 31 December 2024, representing a 42% increase from $1,152,479 in 2023.

The fourth quarter of 2024 saw revenue reach $690,688 – the company’s highest quarterly figure since inception and a 12% increase compared to the same period in 2023.

This growth was primarily driven by increased unit sales volume following the launch of co-branded collections and the Lucyd Armor safety smart glasses line.

Early sales of the safety glasses appear promising, and investors will be looking forward to the launch of Reebok-branded smart eyewear in Q2 2025. The safety glasses range was released midway through the fourth quarter, so the full quarterly impact of the new range will not be felt until Q1 2025.

The company has materially increased its distribution networks, and its products are now stocked by numerous eyewear outlets and ‘big box’ retailers.

Lucyd smart eyewear is now also available on Walmart.com, Target.com, BestBuy.com, DicksSportingGoods.com, Brookstone.com, and eBay.

“Our 2024 fourth quarter revenue was our best quarter yet, and we have continued the trend of outperforming sales each quarter on a year-over-year basis, for the last 18 months,” said Harrison Gross, CEO of Innovative Eyewear Inc.

“As we look ahead to 2025, we believe we are well positioned to build on our momentum and significantly grow both our total revenues and our market share. I am particularly excited about the potential of our upcoming Reebok® product lines which we will be launching in 2025 coupled with the continued significant traction of the Lucyd Armor^TM smart safety glasses.”

Gross profit margins improved significantly to 13% in 2024, compared with a negative 10% in 2023. This 23 percentage point improvement was largely attributable to reduced costs for frames and lenses, which contributed 13 and 8 percentage points, respectively, to the margin enhancement.

Innovative Eyewear has invested heavily in marketing, which is reflected in an overall loss for the year. That said, increased sales in Q4 put the company on an upward trajectory towards breakeven, should sales growth momentum continue. The upcoming quarters could prove particularly interesting for the Tekcapital portfolio company.

The company ended 2024 with $2,628,987 in cash and cash equivalents, down from $4,287,447 a year earlier.

During the fourth quarter, Innovative Eyewear achieved several milestones, including the launch of the first ANSI-certified smart safety glasses for all-day wear, expansion to over 400 optical stores, and a new retail partnership with Nebraska Furniture Mart.