Weir Group shares sunk on Tuesday following the release of a trading statement in which the company said operating profits were expected to be ‘slightly lower’ than previously thought. Shares in Weir Group were down over 6% in early trade. The company attributed the weaker outlook to the phasing of mineral projects and one-off configuration costs. CEO Jon Stanton, commented in the update:

“In 2017 we continue to build on our leadership positions in rapidly improving main markets whilst investing to maximise the significant opportunities ahead of us. “As the North American onshore oil and gas industry continues to demonstrate its increased relevance as a source of global supply, our Oil & Gas business is fully leveraging its market leadership position in support of higher activity levels among customers. While international markets remained challenging the division has accelerated in 2017 as we expected and is well placed to continue to fully capture future opportunities. “In Minerals our brownfield solutions delivered good order growth with an increasing pipeline of future opportunities. Profits will be slightly lower than previously indicated due to project phasing, incremental investment in growth and one-off plant reconfiguration as we ensure the business is well set to benefit from increased momentum in 2018 and beyond.”

“At a group level, we anticipate strong growth in full year constant currency revenues and profits. Minerals profits are expected to be slightly lower than previously indicated while expectations for Oil & Gas and Flow Control are unchanged.”

BP reported Q3 earnings on Tuesday morning and comfortably beat analysts expectations giving the board confidence to announce a share buyback. BP’s net profit for the quarter was $1.9 billion against analysts expectations of $1.6 billion. The increase in profit represented a near 100% increases in earnings from a year earlier when the company suffered significant impairment charges. The Oil major said a dividend of 10 cent per share would be paid in December in line with payments over the past few years. There have been concerns that BPs cashflow could put pressure on the dividend but asset sales and strength in the midstream has helped their cash position. BP recorded an average price $49 per barrel of oil in the quarter highlighting the cost efficiencies the company has implemented to help the bottom line in a period of low oil prices. Bob Dudley, BP CEO commented on the results: “We are steadily building a track record of delivering on our plans and growing across our businesses. This quarter, three new Upstream projects and the highest Downstream earnings in five years, underpinned by reliable operations and disciplined spending, have generated healthy earnings and cash flow. There is still room for further improvement and we will keep striving to increase sustainable free cash flow and distributions to shareholders.”

Royal Bank of Scotland (LON:RBS) have continued their already positive year with a third successive quarter of profit. For the third quarter RBS made a profit of £392 million, pushing their profit for the year up to £1.33 billion.

Some quarters have suggested this leaves RBS in a strong position to finish the full-year in profit for the first time since their state funded bailout in 2008. RBS themselves have however expressed caution as they are yet to conclude a number of litigation cases in the US, as well as being under a fresh investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority over mistreatment of small business customers. The firm have already made provisions for these cases, whilst also warning that there may be the need for further substantial provisions. RBS has seen their net interest margin decline for both the third quarter and first nine months of the year, compared to the year previous. In the third quarter net interest margin fell five basis points to 2.12% and fell 2 basis points for the first nine months to 2.16% One off payments for PPI claims was £115 million for the quarter, leaving them with £979 million of provisions. This is an increase in payments from £81 million in Q2 2017, which was expected as new FCA media campaigns has had a significant impact on the number of claims. RBS’ long term target for Common Equity Tier 1 ratio is 13%, managing to be above this target for the quarter as it increased by 70 basis points to 15.5%. This strong performance reflected “continued RWA (Risk-Weighted Asset) reduction, the attributable profit and a reduction in the prudential valuation capital deduction, broadly offsetting the Capital Resolution losses taken in the quarter”. The group, that also owns Natwest, stated firm progress in all four of the target areas they have identified. Income has grown 7.5% for the year to date, operating expenses has been reduced by £708 million, capital usage has been reduced and they are moving toward resolving legacy issues.  

RBS shares have remained close to their opening price, increasing 0.4% to 282p at the time of writing, despite early strong performance.

The biotechnology company Shire PLC (LON:SHP) has had a label extension approved by the European Commission. The label extension grants a new indication for FIRAZYR, allowing it to be used by adolescents and children aged two and older.

FIRAZYR is used to treat people with hereditary angioedema (HAE), which is a rare genetic diseases that specifically causes attacks of localised oedema. HAE is thought to affect one in 10,000-50,000 people worldwide.

Despite the label extension of FIRAZYR Shire have seen their share price drop 2% to 3517p. This is in anticipation of Shire delivering their third quarter results for 2017 tomorrow (October 27).

Analysts expect revenue for the rare disease specialist to rise 8% and earnings per share to increases by 15% on the previous year. Shire drugs Cinryze and Lialda may however perform worse than expected. Cinryze has suffered from a supply shortage and Lialda has been experiencing competition from Zydus.

Precious and base metals exploration company Greatland Gold (LON:GGP) saw shares fall nearly 2 percent on Tuesday, despite announcing the discovery of additional gold potential at their Panorama project. The project, located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, covers a total area of 130 square kilometres and is prospective for both gold and cobalt mineralisation. In its Northern license area, it found multiple historic rock chip samples with an elevated gold response along a 3.2 kilometre zone including results of 10.5g/t, 14.0g/t, 14.5g/t, 20.0g/t and 66.0g/t gold. Greatland’s technical team has completed field reconnaissance along this zone and has confirmed that visual indications of mineralisation are present. In its Southern license area , detailed government geological mapping confirms the presence of lower Fortescue Group coarse grained sandstones and conglomerates at two locations. Gervaise Heddle, Chief Executive Officer, commented: “Historic rock chip and stream sampling results suggest that there is a 3.2 kilometre long zone of gold mineralisation in the northern licence area that extends along strike from historical gold mines immediately to the north of our northern licence application. “In addition, a review of detailed government geological mapping has confirmed the presence of coarse grained sandstones and conglomerates adjacent to the Mt Roe Basalt at two locations in the southern licence application. This is the equivalent geological setting to that of the Purdy’s Reward and Comet Well prospects currently under the operation of Novo Resources Corp. (TSV-V:NVO).” Shares in Greatland Gold are currently trading down 1.68 percent at 2.34 (1243GMT).

Unilever’s (LON:ULVR) share price fell over 5 percent on Thursday, after natural disasters in the Americas and poor weather in Europe negatively affected its third quarter figures. The company reported a 1.6 percent decline in turnover to €13.2 billion in the third quarter, with the stronger euro having a currency impact of 5.1 percent. Underlying sales growth rose 2.6 percent, weaker than the previous quarter’s 3 percent rise and below analysts expectations. However the company experienced a surge of growth in its Emerging Markets division, in which underlying sales rose by 6.3 percent. In a statement, Unilever’s CEO Paul Polman said: “For the full year, we continue to expect underlying sales growth within the 3 – 5% range, an improvement in underlying operating margin of at least 100 basis points and strong cash flow.”\ Shares in Unilever, who recently fought off a takeover from American food giant Kraft Heinz, are currently trading down 4.99 percent at 4,321.17 (1516GMT).

Construction company Interserve (LON:IRV) saw shares tumble over 30 percent on Thursday, after a slow third quarter led to a profit warning. Interserve said it now expected profits for the second hald of the year to be about half of those in the same period last year, adding that there was be a “realistic prospect” it will breach its banking covenants. “We now believe there is a realistic prospect that we will not meet the net debt to ebitda test contained in our financial covenants for 31 December 2017,” Interserve said on Thursday, causing the stock to plunge over 30 percent in early morning trading. The stock has now fallen by over 80 percent this year, after the company issued a first profit warning last month. However, chief executive Debbie White remained confident about the group’s potential, saying on a conference call with analysts that there was “considerable potential for business improvement across the company”. Interserve shares are currently trading down 25.56 percent at 67.00 (1501GMT).

Workspace company IWG (LON:IWG) saw shares plummeted over 30 percent on Thursday morning, after saying profit for 2017 would come in “materially below market expectations”. Trading in London was hit by “weakness”, with the firm, formerly known as Regus, struggling to beat off competition from newer co-working spaces such as WeWork. The company is now predicting full-year operating profits of between £160 million and £170 million, saying that spending plans may impact on the company’s short term growth. In a trading update, IWG said sales had not been as high as expected over the quarter and that “the year to date reduction in mature revenues to 30 September 2017 has remained similar to that of the first half, with a decline of 1.9 per cent at constant currency.” “This is disappointing, although the very strong uplift in sales activity so far in October, would suggest that this is in part potentially a timing issue”.