Good morning and welcome to another day/week of marker updates.
Markets are going down at the moment due to concerns around growth around the world and the threat of rising interest rates.
Ft100 down another 1% today after heavy falls in the US last week.
In business news Banknote printer De La Rue has warned that supply chain issues triggered by the pandemic and rising energy costs will hit its profits. The company, which prints banknotes for the Bank of England, said it faced higher costs of raw materials and microchips, "primarily" due to Covid. De La Rue said Covid variants had also resulted in higher staff absences. It added annual profits were now set to be between £36m and £40m, rather than about £45m as first estimated. The warning sent the London-listed company's down by 30% on Monday. UK-based De La Rue prints cash for about 140 central banks and employs more than 2,500 people globally. Chief executive Clive Vacher said factories in the UK, Malta and Sri Lanka had been the worst hit by Covid infections. "The spikes in absences have looked very similar to the spikes we've seen in the general population across the pandemic," he told the PA news agency. "The Omicron and Delta variants have caused substantially increased employee absences in our manufacturing facilities globally, which will result in lower total operational output for the full year."
The government and business will herald a "landmark moment" in improving the North West's rail connections on Monday when the bill to extend HS2 to Manchester is laid in Parliament. Phase 2b of the high-speed line will cut journey times by 55 minutes from London to Manchester, ministers say. The bill laid on Monday seeks powers to lay new track and build new stations. Work is under way on phase one of HS2 between London and Birmingham. It is set to open between 2029 and 2033. The next section will extend the line to Crewe, with the final phase taking HS2 to Manchester - with that part of the line expected to open between 2035 and 2040. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: "We are determined to improve transport connections and level up communities across the country, and this bill marks a landmark moment as we bring HS2 to Manchester and lay the foundations for Northern Powerhouse Rail." Retailer John Lewis has said all its staff are entitled to full sick pay for Covid-related absences, regardless of vaccination status, and it would not be "right" to differentiate. It comes after Ocado, Next and Ikea revealed they only pay the legal minimum to unjabbed staff if they have to isolate due to Covid exposure. John Lewis's operations director Andrew Murphy said he "cast no judgement". And he added the firm was "not going to make any change of this type". and inflation continues to surge have a great week!!! Best Regards S Dhanda
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