Corporate results:

  • Admiral cuts dividend after a marginal rise in half-year earnings.
  • Agilent fell 2% after lowering its guidance.
  • Alcon improved Q2 results and revised upwards its outlook for fiscal 2023.
  • Balfour Beatty reported lower first-half earnings and higher sales.
  • Carlsberg reassured investors with its quarterly figures
  • Nu Holdings rose 3.7% after the publication of its quarterly results.

In other news:

  • Intel withdraws from its $5.4 billion acquisition of Tower Semiconductor, according to Reuters.
  • Google to roll out new AI-powered search features.
  • Target jumped around 8% in pre-market trading after better-than-expected quarterly results overshadowed downward revisions to sales and earnings forecasts for the current year. Competitor Walmart is due to publish its results on Thursday.
  • Coinbase announced on Wednesday that it had received regulatory approval in the USA to offer cryptocurrency futures contracts to retail investors. Coinbase shares gained 5.5% in pre-market trading.
  • Tesla has lowered the price of existing stocks of its Model S and Model X in China by up to 6.9%, the company announced on Wednesday. Its New York-listed Chinese competitors, such as XPeng , Li
  • Auto and Nio, are down between 1.7% and 5.2% in pre-market trading.
  • General Motors - South Korean carmaker Hyundai Motor announced on Wednesday that its Indian subsidiary had bought out General Motors' Talegaon plant in the state of Maharashtra.
  • Occidental Petroleum buys Carbon Engineering for $1.1 bn.
  • Marks and Spencer could return to the FTSE 100 after revamping its financial image, according to the Telegraph.
  • Hennes & Mauritz investigates abuses in Myanmar factories.
  • Tenaris acquires Bredero Shaw from Mattr for $166 million.

Today's main earnings reports: Tencent Holdings, Cisco, Target, Aviva, Demant, Glanbia... The full earnings calendar is here.