AG Barr, BT Openreach and Wizz Air

“The FTSE100 opened on the front foot after cautious overnight trading on the key indices of Wall Street and Asia. Investors are looking to UK manufacturing data, Nationwide's house-price index and the British Retail Consortium's shop-price index and will also be scrutinising several euro-zone purchasing manager indices,” says AJ Bell Investment Director Russ Mould.

“Soft drinks group AG Barr expects 2017 to be another challenging year with the market remaining highly competitive. The IRN-BRU maker has maintained tight control of its costs and has implemented a company-wide reorganisation that has enhanced its organisational capability and reduced overheads and operating margins remain in line with forecasts.

“BT’s Openreach has appointed two independent board members in its bid to become a more transparent and autonomous business. Former TUC general secretary Sir Brendan Barber, who is now chairman of Acas, and former National Grid board member Edward Astle have joined the board alongside Mike McTighe, who was appointed independent chairman of Openreach in December. Establishing the new board is central to governance reforms that Openreach has been implementing and part of a reorganisation programme to give it increased operational and management independence. BT led the blue-chip board, up by more than 2.1% in early trading.

“Wizz Air’s shares nose-dived in early trading after it lowered underlying net profit forecasts. Passenger numbers are up but the problem for the low-cost carrier is that lower fuel prices continue to feed through to lower airfares, and this downward trend looks likely to continue. Wizz Air was the biggest FTSE250 faller with its shares down by 7.3% in early trading.”

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