Early morning call: Sainsbury’s maintains profit outlook
Sainsbury’s Q3 grocery sales rose 9.3%. Christmas grocery sales up 8.6%, with stronger volume growth offsetting lower inflation.
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Nikkei 225 rises above 34,000
The Nikkei 225 rose above 34,000 on Wednesday for the first time since March 1990. A performance that didn’t reflect the session. The Hang Seng and S&P/ASX 200 ended the session lower, following a hesitant US session.
In Australia, the monthly CPI indicator rose by 4.3% in November YoY, down from 4.9% in October and less than market forecasts of 4.4%. It is the second straight month of moderation in annual inflation, and this latest reading is the lowest since January 2022. Later, on Wednesday afternoon, US wholesale inventories are forecast to fall by 0.2% for the month of November.
Sainsbury's, Greggs report sales rise
Elsewhere on the equity market, Persimmon said on Wednesday that housing market conditions would remain tough in 2024. Sainsbury's Q3 grocery sales rose 9.3%. Christmas grocery sales up 8.6%, with stronger volume growth offsetting lower inflation. Greggs total sales rose 19% to £1.809 billion in 2023, as it opened a record 220 new shops in the year.
It's been confirmed after a day's worth of speculation that Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is to buy Juniper Networks for $40 per share in an all-cash deal, valuing the company at $14 billion. This represents a 32.4% premium to the stock's close on Monday, when the news first emerged. With this acquisition, HPE wants to boost its AI-driven offerings, particularly in network security, and enterprise networking operations.
Fake news drives Bitcoin close to $48k
The recent rally in Bitcoin received a temporary boost late on Tuesday and the crypto briefly rose to within a short distance of $48 000 on what transpired was actually fake news! A social media post announced the SEC had approved ETFs for Bitcoin. The message was sent to the SEC X account. Within minutes the SEC had deleted and disowned the information and said that 'as of Tuesday' it had not approved the BlackRock ETF application.
According to the API, crude oil inventories decreased sharply for a second week in a row. Last week, crude stocks fell by 5.2 million barrels. And for a second straight week also, gasoline and distillate stocks rose, by 4.9 and 6.9 million barrels respectively.
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