easyJet, N Brown and Marston's

“The FTSE 100 is fighting back after last week's wobble, trading 17 points higher today at 7,732. The banking sector is once again helping to lead the index, together with gains in the large drug companies,” says AJ Bell Investment Director, Russ Mould.

"A better than expected first quarter trading has given easyJet’s shares a decent lift. It is pushing up ticket prices, carrying more passengers and getting them to spend more money on ancillary revenue which covers items like baggage fees and paying to book a specific seat on a plane. Importantly, costs are only going up by a small amount so the airline should enjoy a decent uplift in profit. It’s no wonder investors are scrambling to buy the shares today.

"Fashion retailer N Brown joins the scrapheap of retailers disappointing investors with recent trading. Its shares are taking a beating after a big slowdown in sales growth during the third quarter. Group sales growth of 3.2% was significantly behind the 5.6% growth in the first half of its financial year. Product sales growth of 2.7% is even worse when you compare it against the first half period’s 7.5% increase. It’s a hard life for many retailers and it’s hard to see any change in this situation any time soon.

"The curse of the bad weather has struck pubs group Marston’s as it blames snow for causing an estimated £1m in lost profit. Snow and icy weather stopped the usual flow of people having a pint and pie for two weeks in December, according to Marston’s. It has reported 0.9% like-for-like sales decline in the 16 weeks to 20 January 2018. If you exclude the two snow-affected weeks, it managed 1.1% sales growth in the period. Good and bad weather comes with the territory for pub companies and two weeks’ disruption is no reason to panic about the business."

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