Ocado shrugs off warehouse fire with aggressive numbers

Ocado has been bucking the trend in UK retail for some time, and this morning announced retail revenues were up over 9% despite a fire at its Andover warehouse that led to a write down of GBP 98 million. Beyond this however Ocado is looking to realise further revenues from its technology platform and international partnerships.

Ocado shares were up 3.76% in early trading. The FTSE 100 opened slightly down again and seems intent on giving up some of its performance in June.

Asian markets wait for further Fed news

Asian markets had a less satisfactory outing on Tuesday. The US jobs report suggesting better than expected employment growth had Asian traders awaiting further testimony from the Fed on Capitol Hill. The markets appear more convinced now that we will not see further rate hikes in the US anytime soon. Most major Asian indexes were off slightly with only the Nikkei 225 up 0.14%.

Unions put pressure on Corbyn to back Remain

In the currency markets it is still all politics for the pound, with the GBP sitting at that 1.25 level as traders wait to see what happens next. Unions have put pressure on Labour to back a future Remain vote, but there is still the staunchly hard line Brexit rhetoric coming out of the Tory leadership contest to consider. The pound slipped down to 1.2483 this morning.

Oil prices are also slightly down at around the USD 63 point for Brent crude at the moment. The worries here are that we are heading into a global slowdown that will hit demand. On top of this energy traders are still unconvinced that the US and China can pull that trade agreement out of the hat.