Daily Stock Market Report (Thu 22 May 2025) - VEL, BKS, WRKS, BMY, JMAT, IPX, SQZ, RBN, IDOX, WATR, THS, QQ., ZTF

Thu 6:00am by Roland Head

33 comments 5531 reads

Good morning! It's another busy day, with 37 companies on the agenda.

The agenda is now complete.

Today's report is now complete (2.30pm) - see you tomorrow!

Companies Reporting

Name (Mkt Cap)	RNS	Summary	Our view (Author)
BT (LON:BT.A) (£16.9bn)	Full Year Results	Rev -2%, adj EBITDA +1% to £8.2bn. Adj free cash flow +25% to £1.6bn. FY26 outlook broadly flat.
Intertek (LON:ITRK) (£7.86bn)	Trading Statement	YTD rev +4.6%, improved margins. 2025 results to be in line with expectations.
ConvaTec (LON:CTEC) (£5.64bn)	AGM Trading Update	YTD rev +5.1%, FY25 revenue guidance tightened to 5.5%-7.0%, with adj op margin 22.0-22.5%.
Investec (LON:INVP) (£4.41bn)	Final Results	Rev +5%, adj op profit +4% to £920m. FY25 ROE of 13.9%, in line with guidance.
easyJet (LON:EZJ) (£4.3bn)	Interim Results	H1 adj PBT of £(394)m, in line with exps. Current bookings support meeting FY25 exps.
British Land (LON:BLND) (£4.1bn)	Full Year Results	EPRA NTAVps +1% to 567p, adj profit +4% to £279m. Outlook: FY26 adj EPS “broadly flat”
Shaftesbury Capital (LON:SHC) (£2.81bn)	AGM Trading Update	Strong demand in West End, new leases 8% above ERV. Ann. rent roll +3% to £210m, vacancy <2%.
Tate & Lyle (LON:TATE) (£2.7bn)	Full Year Results	Pro forma rev -3%, adj PBT +7% to £263m. FY26: rev growth at lower end or below target range.
Qinetiq (LON:QQ.) (£2.4bn)	Full Year Results	Rev +1%, adj PBT -13% to £147m. Order intake +12%. FY26: rev +3%, EPS growth exp 15-20%	AMBER (Roland) Today’s results appear to be in line with March’s reduced guidance and QinetiQ appears to have acted promptly to right-size its US business. Trading in the dominant UK and Europe markets appears much healthier, fortunately. Although my feeling is that today’s FY26 guidance is slightly weaker than provided in March, I don’t see enough here to take a negative view. With the stock trading on a 15 times forecast earnings, I’m going to revert to my previous neutral view.
Petershill Partners (LON:PHLL) (£2.34bn)	Q1 Trading Update	Aggregate AUM +1% to $339bn. Raised $7bn of fee-eligible AUM in Q1. FY25 guidance unchanged.
Johnson Matthey (LON:JMAT) (£2.3bn)	Full Year Results & Sale of Catalyst Technologies	Rev -9%, adj PBT +2% to £334m. FY25 results in line with exps. Sale of Catalysts Technologies unit for £1.8bn.	AMBER/GREEN (Roland) It’s disappointing to see…

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PitBullCH

Thu 8:50am

I hate to say “me too”, but me too ;-)

flashing blade

Thu 8:57am

on iphone, it appears when you turn the phone to landscape

sparkler

Thu 9:06am

I think the share price fall in Bloomsbury Publishing (LON:BMY) is justified. The issues (as always) are around the Academic & Professional division. Organic revenue down 10% so the headline figures can be ignored because they were boosted £20m by the large acquisition. Consensus group revenues for next year are forecast at 3.5% below this year and this includes the tailwind from the three additional months trading of Rowan & Littlefield (c£8m).

The final concern is that already this early in the year the language in the statement is an outlook 'broadly in line with consensus' and we all know what that means! Bloomsbury is a company that I like a lot but it essentially has two incredibly successful authors and the rest of the business mostly underwhelms.

Albertos

Thu 9:49am

Macfarlane (LON:MACF)

No reports today but this has gone up 15% in the last few days on elevated volume, which is very unusual for this plodder.

Has it been tipped somewhere or is there other news I'm unaware of ?

Deegee Eff

Thu 9:53am

Anglo Asian Mining (LON:AAZ) Results look very good, with gold and copper production about to take off now that the mine is fully functional. Political risk now appears low. Some debt but at low rates of only 6.5% but should be rapidly paid back over the next year or so.

Breath of fresh air....they are actively encouraging shareholders to attend their AGM !

Bouden54

Thu 9:56am

The problem is it wasn't cheap so even a slight disappointment can have a big impact on share price.

1James1n1

Thu 10:07am

Works co uk (LON:WRKS) Thanks for the comments today Mark but I struggle to get above amber on this company.

It has no moat, I cannot imagine it would be created now if it did not exist, it functions in a highly competitive environment and does not pay a divi.

It goes through ups and downs with market changes, so is highly cyclical and is a fraction of its original floated value. E-commerce is going backwards and I dislike the use of EBITDA instead of PBT when Finance costs are a significant part of the P&L.

Finally, they give weak advice on FY26 when they say they are "targeting" to beat market expectations. Well I am targetting many things, but we'll see if I can accomplish them!

I just don't buy this other than a short-term trade. I see no value in the firm's longer term prospects. Again, thanks for the review as I could check my perceptions against your take, but I remain unconvinced at this time!

rmillaree

Thu 10:13am

Bloomsbury Publishing (LON:BMY)

wow hard to digest whats going on here as someone watching from the sidelines

i suspect there has been some poor prior communication here or poor communication today to cause todays reaction.

the problem is we have the introduction of the outlook mix here - a worseing ref outlook - probably has to be worth 105 drop - could it epxlain full 17% drop - perhaps. But i would say if they had guided market more clearly and kept it simpler today. I doubt job done and we are broadly on track would have resulted in 17% drop ? - who knows though - it is highly rated share and there is also tehn over concentration ref two authors - so the dummy can also be spat out there if peak sales wont last forever and we are close or past peak ref those.

I cant remember but i think they have been quite conservative perhaps ref forecasts previously ? - so perhaps the doom and gloom is overdone. In that regard perhaps they should have been clearer that 2025 was not repeated and perhaps kept 2026 lower. hey its all guesswork - i guess many run for the exit at the firt mere hint of trouble - in that regard even though it might be agreat buying opportunity - i do like level of positive trend ref wahts upcoming - unless i am doing some bottom fishing.

amazing how quick stuff can shange though with any company - i doubt anyone expected todays outcome based on not far of target for new year. let the trend be your friend perhaps ? till the bowl turns up

Rusty2

Thu 10:57am

Well all the figures l'm looking at the profits are down. Down on forecasts as well. Where is this £10m adjustment.

Gimmers

Thu 11:08am

Works co uk (LON:WRKS) V Card Factory (LON:CARD) . Can someone explain to me why the SP of Card has gone nowhere whilst the pile of carp that is Works has gone ballistic? It beggars belief.

Thu 11:44am

Works co uk (LON:WRKS)

Its like comparing a crackhead running a corner shop compared to marks and spencers next door (ignore recent cyber issues)

works has market cap of £19 mill - compared to turnover of £290 mill

card factor has market cap of £339 mill sales £620 mill

obviously for some reason compared to card works have very very low valuation compared to level of sales it has

retail can be brutal - once the market loses confidence in ability to make decent profits the share can dive and the end can sometimes come quickly (generisation here - i havent looked at works balance sheet )

so with very lowly valued share on knife edge it might be woth nil and might be with £1 a share - who knows. you should be fully expecting large variability in shareprice for company like this. Its possibly as simple as some confidence is returning and extreme pessimism has departed the building. thats likely to be based on that companies solvency and/or ability to prove it can deliver some decent profits rconsitently ather than next to nothing.

the above being the case you should not be expecting the normal tracking that you might expect in many similar sector stocks - the works wil lcurrently plough its own furrow depending on how much bounceback ability it has. card has none of that unectainty and is a much more stable company.

doctor dave

Thu 11:56am

I think Works co uk (LON:WRKS) has taken people a bit by surprise by emerging from its relentlessly negative death spiral still alive and functioning. Cockney Rebel expressed interest a couple of weeks ago which also explains the recent.

At 7p EPS for 2026 this is still around a PE of 5 which is about right perhaps for this kind of business. Note though it is highly geared. Any increase in margin will change the outlook quickly. Hence the interest. (I hold).

GreyInvestor

Thu 12:00pm

Really good analysis today, well done….

Brothersinarms

Thu 12:11pm

Re Bloomsbury Publishing (LON:BMY) , I agree with all of the doom and gloom apart from one thing. The forecasts do not include the release of the next SJM book. While it's not guaranteed to be this FY, it is highly likely (the last one was Feb 2024). As they said in the presentation, she was the best selling English language author globally last year by a mile.

In FY24, her last book release led to forecasts being upgraded by 10p. This time, it's likely to be higher given the growth in her readership over the last two years. So, even if weak A&P brings forecasts down by 5%, a new SJM book is likely to bring them back up over 50p.

I've been buying back in the 530s.

Harry Hindsight

Thu 12:45pm

Maybe its the Jigsaw puzzles. A new trend maybe.

20 Times

Thu 1:38pm

They are buying back 10% of the shares

Gmjs

Thu 1:50pm

Given that they mostly sell Chinese produced tat, they could benefit from lower COGS (tarriffs). Every basis point of margin improvement on £290mm quid of turnover has a geared effect on net profits...now, if the consumer is actually in decent health and turnover grows, COGS drop and margins improve then you're off to the races, add in multiple expansion and this is the sort of setup where you can make 3-4x your money in 12-18 months. I suspect this one will get taken out by PE though before that happens. Generally you make the quickest money off of the worst businesses but the big money off the best, in my experience.

timarr

Thu 2:36pm

RE: Bloomsbury Publishing (LON:BMY)

amazing how quick stuff can shange though with any company - i doubt anyone expected todays outcome based on not far of target for new year

Well, abtan did, pointing out in their own quiet fashion last October that things didn't look entirely right:

https://www.stockopedia.com/co...

I followed them out of the door. There's too much concentration on a single author for this to be a comfortable holding (as abtan pointed out, the Harry Potter revenues are now negligible for a company of BMY's size) ...

KBR

Thu 8:21pm

Voted against.

Alkmund

Thu 8:31pm

Catching up late with today's news where it was interesting to see the increase in share price of Johnson Matthey (LON:JMAT) (I hold). The chemical industry is a major sector in the UK both in terms of comparative scale and for exports. Others in the sector including Victrex (LON:VCT), Croda International (LON:CRDA) , Synthomer (LON:SYNT) , Zotefoams (LON:ZTF) , (I hold all four) have like Johnson Matthey (LON:JMAT) all been in the doldrums in recent years, similar perhaps to the construction industry. Yet this sector is likely going to be absolutely critical in the future, especially as we decarbonise, and create a circular economy. This will likely take a very long time to fully play out, yet short term moves are still interesting.

Daily Stock Market Report (Thu 22 May 2025) - VEL, BKS, WRKS, BMY, JMAT, IPX, SQZ, RBN, IDOX, WATR, THS, QQ., ZTF

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Roland Head

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