LIVEDaily Stock Market Report (Wed 28th Oct 2026) - BRCK, HTG, SFOR, GSK
The overnight news concerns two of the elections I mentioned earlier this week.
Israel: the result of yesterday’s general election vote is said to be too close to call. Exit polls previously suggested that there was a narrow lead for Netanyahu. His rival, former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, is said to be a centrist (whereas Netanyahu is the leader of Israel’s right-wing political bloc).
Brazil: Flávio Bolsonaro, who lost the election in Brazil this week, has fled to the United States despite being ordered to surrender his passport. His father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, remains in the Brazilian prison system.
I don’t think either of these elections are going to move our markets very much - let’s move onto today's company news.
Overnight market movements:
The FTSE is down 0.2% at 10,660
S&P 500 is up 0.1% at 7,730
Brent crude (January) is up 1.9% at $111.40/bbl
Gold is down 0.7% at $4,030/oz
Bitcoin is up 0.2% at $80,800
Roland Head joins me today.
The table is complete. Spreadsheet accompanying this report: link.
Companies Reporting
Name (Mkt Cap) | RNS | Summary | Our view (Author) |
|---|---|---|---|
Unilever (LON:ULVR) (£105bn | SR62) | Revenue +6.7% to €13.3bn. Underlying sales growth of 5.2%,, with 2.9% volume growth and 2.3% price growth. 2026 outlook upgraded: now expect at least 3% volume growth (previously “around 3%”). Other guidance unchanged. | ||
GSK (LON:GSK) (£78bn | SR81) | Q3 revenue +4% to £8.9bn with operating profit -18% to £2.1bn and adj EPS -1% to 54.6p. 2026 outlook unchanged for revenue growth of 3%-5% and adj EPS growth of 7%-9%. | AMBER = (Roland) | |
Standard Chartered (LON:STAN) (£44bn | SR82) | Operating income +13% to £5.8bn with pre-tax profit +27% to £2.25bn. 2026 guidance upgraded: now expects operating income growth above the 5% to 7% range, with RoTE to be around 14% (previously within 5%-7% and above 12%, respectively). | ||
Intertek (LON:ITRK) (£9.1bn | SR51) | Q3 revenue +7%, with 6.4% LFL growth. Acquisition by EQT progressing and expected to complete in Q4 26 or Q1 27. | TAKEOVER | |
Plus500 (LON:PLUS) (£2.36bn | SR66) | Has launched Kalshi perpetual futures ("perps") through its US Futures Commission Merchant ("FCM"). As a result, Plus500 is the first FCM, excluding Kalshi Prime, to offer perps on Kalshi Exchange, a CFTC-regulated US exchange. | ||
Georgia Capital (LON:CGEO) (£1.39bn | SR69) | Sept 26 NAVps +15.1% to £57.69 vs June 26. Q3 revenue +18.5% with EBITDA +26.3% vs Q3 25. | ||
Metro Bank Holdings (LON:MTRO) (£1.14bn | SR74) | Chair Robert Sharpe will step down on 31 October 2026, at the end of his six-year term. An interim chair has been appointed who will lead the search for a new chair.. | ||
Elementis (LON:ELM) (£1.04bn | SR63) | Revenue +7% for the nine months to 30 September. 2026 outlook: FY26 adj op profit expected to be $133-135m, in line with recently upgraded guidance. | ||
Renew Holdings (LON:RNWH) (£780m | SR77) | Porter Brothers is a specialist provider of extra high voltage cabling and directional drilling engineering services to the energy distribution market. Renew has acquired Porter Brothers for up to £50m, with an initial consideration of £31.1m “based on a sustainable EBIT of £3.9m”. | ||
Hunting (LON:HTG) (£644m | SR50) | The conflict in the Middle East has impacted performance in Q3 and into Q4. FY26 adj EBITDA is now expected to be in the range $128-$133m (previously downgraded to $138-$141m in August). | PROFIT WARNING (AMBER/RED =) (Roland) | |
C&C (LON:CCR) (£375m | SR78) | Net revenue -3% to €794.9m with adj pre-tax profit +4% to €33.3m and adj EPS +6% to 7.1c. Growth in Branded sales, offset by lower Distribution. FY27 outlook: in line with expectations. | ||
Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings (LON:AML) (£386m | SR19) | Q3 volumes flat at 1,431 with revenue +36% to £388.7m and adj EBIT loss reduced to £(24.9)m. Improved product mix (with more Valhalla deliveries) saw YTD gross margin improve to 35%. FY26 guidance unchanged. | ||
Ecora Royalties (LON:ECOR) (£385m | SR89) | Total portfolio contribution of $24.8m in Q3 2026, broadly flat v Q3 2025. “Looking ahead, we are entering a pivotal phase. The next twelve months should feature a number of key milestones across our development portfolio of copper and wider critical minerals royalties…" | ||
S4 Capital (LON:SFOR) (£359m | SR89) | 2026 full year like-for-like net revenue now estimated to be marginally below previous guidance. Adjusted basic earnings per share is expected to be in excess of current analyst consensus of 6.1p per share. | AMBER= (Graham) (revenue warning) | |
Hargreaves Services (LON:HSP) (£269m | SR96) | “...a good start to the financial year, with trading in line with the Board's expectations… expects to deliver results for the year ending 31 May 2027 in line with current market expectations.” | ||
Concurrent Technologies (LON:CNC) (£239m | SR49) | $7m of production orders from a major US Tier 1 defence prime contractor. | GN note: no reference to any impact on expectations. | |
Aew UK Reit (LON:AEWU) (£166m | SR73) | NAV of £170.50 million or 107.45 pence per share as at 30 September 2026. NAV total return 1.53% for the quarter. “Looking ahead, we are encouraged by the depth of attractive, high-yielding opportunities in our investment pipeline across a range of real estate sectors.” | ||
BRCK (LON:BRCK) (£158m | SR86) | H1 FY27 results in line with the Board’s expectations. H1 revenue down 1.1%. Continues to be impacted by subdued housebuilding and RMI markets. Board now expects the Company to deliver Adjusted EBITDA* for FY27 of approximately £45.0 million, compared with the current market consensus figure for Adjusted EBITDA of £50.3 million. | PROFIT WARNING (AMBER/RED ↓) (Roland) | |
Mkango Magnetic Materials (LON:MKA) (£117m | SR n/a) | Agreement with Professor Carlo Burkhardt to acquire his 10 per cent interest in HyProMag Germany, after which HyProMag Germany will be wholly owned by HyProMag UK. Price is £1.06m, of which £758k will be satisfied by new Mkango shares. |
| |
Trufin (LON:TRU) (£55m | SR89) | Buys Rockford Associates for £1.8m, payable in cash, plus £0.2m if EBITDA target achieved. Gives an in-house capability to deliver overpayment audits to clients. | ||
Renalytix (LON:RENX) (£40m | SR24) | Revenues flat at $3.0 million. Underlying EBITDA loss reduced from $14m to $12m. $14m placing in Sep 2026. $4.6m debt converted to equity. |
| |
Pulsar (LON:PULS) (£20m | SR25) | ARR of £67.7m up 2.6% in FY26 to date. FY26 revenue of c. £65m (FY25: £61.2m) and Adjusted EBITDA of c. £10m (FY25: £10.4m). Assessing demand for a potential fundraise of up to £5.0m. | ||
Kelso group (LON:KLSO) (£20m | SR47) | Further c. 10% increase in NAV since interim results and trading update on 2 September 2026. |
Analyst notes
- BRCK (LON:BRCK)
BRCK Group: housing headwinds cut earnings guidance by 20% as debt climbs - we turn cautious
The current headwinds in the housing market are well known and I'm not entirely surprised by today's downgrade. However, this is BRCK's second profit warning in four months. I'm going to move our view down by two notches to AMBER/RED today, to reflect the growing risk from rising leverage and the seemingly weaker outlook for earnings.
This is Hunting's second profit warning in four months, with both triggered by the conflict in the Middle East. While this both unsurprising and clearly not the company's fault, the risk of further disruption means that Hunting isn't yet cheap enough to persuade me to upgrade our view.
Q4 revenue numbers must be shaping up very poorly, given the new revenue guidance, with the company potentially entering 2027 from a position of weakness. We were neutral on this in August when Roland took a prudently cautious stance at a market cap of about £260m, and I'm inclined to leave us on neutral today. Based on the latest share price, I believe the PE ratio is currently 7.3x. I view this as a fair multiple - maybe even a generous one - for a business that is still carrying some debt (£50-80m at year end targeted), is in a state of revenue decline, and has a poor track record of profitability.
GSK's third-quarter vaccine sales appear to have fallen below City estimates, despite overall Q3 results coming in slightly higher than expected. While a forward P/E of 10 leaves GSK trading at a tempting discount to rival AstraZeneca, CEO Luke Miels still needs to prove that his drug pipeline can return the business to sustainable growth. I'm going to mirror the StockRanks and remain neutral today.
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27 comments
GSK (LON:GSK) Q3 results today - headline "...strong Q3 performance and continued momentum" with full year guidance reaffirmed. However as I write sp down 5.6%. Any thoughts on the reaction?
Hargreaves Lansdown not loading my investments on the app this morning. Any other users having issues
Can't comment on HL, but constant 404 - Page Not Found error messages with AJ Bell, when searching for funds etc. It's budget day, happens a lot
Elementis (LON:ELM) continuing to make progress, now that the talc disaster has been cleared out of the way. Not the most exciting of companies, but what is wrong with that?
Stock rank for Plus500 (LON:PLUS) is 82 not 66
Thank you Roland, your analysis and subscriber comments have given me pause for thought on adding to our starter position. Frank Hanna used to be joint CEO of MBH in which we have a full holding and is also struggling but carefully run. I can't help thinking FH has a point to prove but I'll wait for their HY before taking any action.
I am "building" a small stake in BRCK (LON:BRCK) and did dip in again today on the drop. I am hoping for something positive in the Budget, but also the 7% yield will help "cement" its position in my portfolio.
Good luck. The problem for the budget is no matter what's in it interest rates are still high for recent history - I don't think the housing market will improve until inflation improves
I doubt the 7% yield is safe now.
I have written several times recently on how hard it is in Housebuilding with costs all round still on the up and issues like the building levy hardly doing much for the bull case. Housebuilders margins are under great pressure and I would not be surprised to see housing starts no where near what the Government is expecting, More adroitly they will have been sitting on their hands until the latest version of ' Help to buy' which to me seems better than the last scheme (albeit not if you are in London) comes on stream. Incentives will abound in the spring of 27 me thinks so is optimisim just deferred, yet again.
Well is this the catalyst for recovery? Volume brick suppliers are in the forefront here so is it idle speculation to think some stock building is happening which would account for some of the increase in borrowings?
The chart suggests a bottoming out around 40p so less than 10% from where we are. If you believe UK will build build build then that would be an entry point. One wonders how safe the dividend is given the indicated 'grim outlook'
Is there a read across to other heavy end building materials suppliers
S4 Capital (LON:SFOR) (Ouch!!) (I hold). I asssume with improved EPS but a marginal drop in like for like net revenue, that this is an overreaction. I was anticipating a pull back as the price had crossed 50p but 14% down seems a lot.
S4 Capital (LON:SFOR)
I asssume with improved EPS but a marginal drop in like for like net revenue, that this is an overreaction
is it a overeaction though ?- what we dont know is what brokers will do with regard to next year stimates - will they look at revenue wobble and make chop to next years expected numbers ? if they do how much wil that chop be. So to me what is key is knowing what the detail is ref next year rather than this.
Note on face value you are right that the revenue miss seems to not matter alot they have advised they are ahead of prior expectations ref eps and debt so overall it all seesm pretty tidy - as ever thugh what is most important is whether next year will take a chop - its over to brokers to find that out though.
Havent looked at this share in detail recently but for thoise happy enough to ignore thne glory days it does seem to be regaining some of its former mojo - they certainly need decent period of proper clean profit generation though to put the past woes behind them.
Thanks excellent insights - I concede I have this in my portfolio based on Stocko's VM ranks for a second time now. I'm floating around even today but may see more losses.
Ouch indeed - look at the trading volume - already almost three times daily average.
Hunting (LON:HTG) another over reaction maybe as current situation WW has been known for months - so why so steep today - twice trading volume so far today!
time to spend more, good upside
The price had been coming back up a bit, I think there had been hopes that growth elsewhere would mitigate the Gulf problems. I think that is still true, but it takes time for these effects to work through. I hold.
BRCK (LON:BRCK)
Horrendous update here - you have one job if go on acquision trail - you need to ensure acquisitions are sound enough that they pay for themselves - at the very time the company needed the proof that the acquisition strategy is working exactly the opposite is happening - debt up again materially - core profits cratering and there is a new acquisition that again complicates all the numbers. The huge red flag to me is the jump in net debt - I just can’t get that to make sense on any level.
Always sceptical of companies that engage in a lot of acquisitions.
It raises risk a lot because the result is unpredictable.
They usually overpay, otherwise why would the acquirer be happy to sell at that price.
Integration of the two entities especially IT systems is always harder than it first appears.
And it is probably empire building by the directors who are more interested in looking at other companies than running their own firm.
A company can grow organically year by year making good profits if it is well run. This is all shareholders want and something that directors should be laser focused on.
BRCK (LON:BRCK)
Always sceptical of companies that engage in a lot of acquisitions.
agreed - its all about the detail though - for exampe, Norcros (LON:NXR) have done a fairly decent job at improving te overall quality of their buisness by using good targetted acquisitions whilst dithcing parts of their buisness that dont provide good whatever RO.. stat you want to use.
Bricks initial plan should have been simple - they spent £100 mill on two cladding companies and those companies had enough work due to backlogs that they should have been able to mostly repay the debt within close to 5 years - or certainly a big enough chunk that even if there was a dropoff its kinda paid for itself - in that regard hitting acquisition targets and delivering simple real clean cashflow is what its all about. the acquisitions were a bit sketchy in that the acquired companies had made ridiculous hay at the start of the cladding crisis delivering crazy good margins (before they bought) - over time it was obvious that the supply would kinda catchup with demand - no biggie if they can leverage things within the other stuff they do.
there seems to be zero honesty from then company though - they say its kinda ok - blame the middle east and then well thats another £ 5 mill of bottom line profit - without really fully explaining why its £5 mill off the bottom line - imho thats a huge miss for company with adequate controls in place - following on from similar and aligned with debt increase - it kinda shows that its currently a mess. the magin of safety needed here with tne debt levels is slipping away somewhat - they are still makig profits and should be able to "service the debt" - but thats not enough to make it an investible business - seeks like at present they are very much less than the sum of the parts - a terrible place to be for an acquisition led company.
Zeus capital has a new report on Spectra Systems (LON:SPSY) The first central bank order for its polymer bank note substrate.
Could be the start of something big.
Thanks for the alert FREng - I missed this yesterday.
The muted share price reaction to the Spectra Systems (LON:SPSY) announcement is probably because "the revenue from the order is not material in the context of the Company’s expected revenue for the year ending 31 December 2026" it's still an important precedent in such a conservative market. I hold.
No magic wand for JH today yiannos1 but let's hope he doesn't rock the gilts boat. We opened a starter position in BRCK recently and are ready to add if Stockopedia analysis and comments are supportive. Their CEO is a man on a mission but I dislike TU's saying how well they're doing with a PW at the end.
I live in hope, but will no doubt be disappointed, of an announcement to cut Government spending, otherwise we'll be dictated to by the bond markets forever, which is no way to run a so called democracy.
Aside from Bolsonaro fleeing to the US, reminding everyone that it’s Budget Day -:)
All the best
Roll on 10 o'clock, I'll be watching at a 'Spooners.
Take it easy!
We have Warsh’s speech as well later on-:)
All the best
Renew Holdings (LON:RNWH) (I hold) For those of us who subscribe to the theory that the way to make money in a gold rush (in this case electricity transmission) is to sell shovels, today's announcement of the acquisition of Porter Brothers Holdings is a good move. An appreciable capability has been strengthened through several acquisitions.
HI Chris
I agree with your thoughts made my career out of doing well the things others did not want. I like the approach here one for the watch list