Bumper gains for HSBC this morning after the company published its Q3 earnings update. Profits came in meaningfully higher than had been expected whilst the bank also announced the launch of a new $3bn share buy-back scheme, having just concluded a similar round last week. Investors seemed happy to look past a decline in net interest margins and full year guidance remains unchanged. The HSBC share price was up 4.5% less than an hour into Tuesday’s trade.
Full year results from YouGov were issued today, noting a 30% increase in revenues thanks to the acquisition of the Consumer Panel Services of GfK. On an underlying basis, the number was a more measured 3%, but still came in slightly ahead of guidance. Weak sales momentum combined with higher staffing and technology costs has taken a toll on margins, but there’s still headroom to increase the dividend by 3% and investors have been quick to applaud the news. In early trade, the YouGov share price is up by more than 13%.
The educational publisher Pearson issued a trading update for the nine months to 30th September this morning. A strong performance by the company’s assessment and qualifications division has left it on track to meet full year expectations, where profits are tipped to come in at £598m. the deployment of AI tools was also seen as delivering a commercial benefit for the company. Pearson’s share price was almost 4% higher just after 9am on Tuesday.
Headlines we expect on Wednesday
Next Trading Update
This time last year Full price sales +3.8%, FY full price sales guidance £4.74bn
Standard Chartered Trading Update
This time last year RoTE 7%, Net interest margin 1.67%, Underlying pre-tax profit $1.3bn
