Friday’s Master Investor Market Report

– The FTSE 100 closed the day at 6,579.81, a fall of 75.20 points.
– The FTSE 250 fell by 119.99 points and finished at 17,499.11.
– The FTSE All Share sank 8.47 points to 3,631.05.
– The FTSE AIM All Share finished 1.36 points lower at 754.92.

Lonmin (LMI) shares tumbled 17.88% to 62p after the firm reported that average Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate almost doubled to 5.76 incidents per million man hours in the year ended 30th June and that the company suffered its first fatal accident in 18 months. Production in the last quarter rose substantially relative to the same period of last year which was heavily impacted by strike action.

Insurer Beazley (BEZ) saw net profits for the six months ended 30th June increase by 16.3% to $154.5 million (£99.8 million), beating forecasts and helping to push the shares up by 20.4p to 340.9p. Shore Capital reiterated a “buy” rating and said that “the group goes from strength to strength with an underwriting franchise which is unlikely to escape the attentions of any corporate predators seeking access to a high quality and diversified Lloyd’s underwriter”.

Soft drinks manufacturer AG Barr (BAG) said that earnings for the six months ending 25th July will be around 5% lower than in the comparative period of the prior year. The Irn-Bru producer said that it faced tough comparatives due to the Commonwealth Games being held in Glasgow last year and that poor weather in 2015 had not helped matters. N+1 Singer stuck with a “sell” rating and commented that “the first half trading update is worse than we feared with a couple of additional negative drags in the period compounding top-line challenges”. The shares fell by 27p to 606p.

Pearson (PSON) finalised the sale of the Financial Times to Nikkei last night for an £844 million consideration. This morning, the publisher also posted results for the six months ended 30th June, which showed losses before taxation almost tripled to £115 million. The company faced difficulties in Saudi Arabia and the US textbook market continues to be sluggish. Shares in the company slipped 15p to 1,219p, having given up earlier gains.

Monday’s news today

Hiscox (HSX) and Reckitt Benckiser (RB.) are among the firms that will publish interim results on Monday.

Quote of the day

“Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.”
– Theodore Roosevelt