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Important information: The value of investments can go down as well as up so you may get back less than you invest. Investors should note that the views expressed may no longer be current and may have already been acted upon. This is a third-party news feed and may not reflect Fidelity’s views.

Thursday newspaper round-up: Fuel poverty, strikes, Lloyds Banking

(Sharecast News) - More than 7 million people who no longer qualify for energy support from next spring face years in fuel poverty if average heat and light bills remain at £3,000, according to a report calling for more targeted help. In his November budget the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, announced that the government's energy price guarantee (EPG) would rise from April to £3,000 a year for the typical home, and the £400 help paid to all households this winter - regardless of income - would not be repeated. - Guardian Britain is to be disrupted by strikes every day until Christmas as trade unions seek to bring the country to a halt in a new winter of discontent. Rail workers, including staff at Eurostar, nurses, teachers, security guards handling cash, driving examiners and rural payments officers are planning industrial action that will affect every day over advent. - Telegraph

Google has been hit with a £13.6bn lawsuit over claims the tech giant's stranglehold on the online advertising market has deprived publishers of revenue. The class action lawsuit, filed in the Competition Appeals Tribunal on Wednesday, claims that Google raked in "super profits" at the expense of hundreds of thousands of websites and mobile apps in the UK. - Telegraph

Italian oil major Eni is in early stage talks to buy Sam Laidlaw's Neptune Energy for up to $6 billion. Preliminary talks are under way but no formal offer has been made, a source said, confirming a report by Reuters. - The Times

Lloyds Banking Group's £52 billion staff pension fund was forced into fire sales of equities and faced collateral calls of billions of pounds at the height of the gilts market crisis, according to unusual evidence tabled in parliament. Henry Tapper, a pensions expert who gave evidence to the work and pensions committee last week, made a written disclosure in which he referred to his partner, Stella Eastwood, who is head of group pensions at Lloyds. - The Times

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Wednesday newspaper round-up: Amazon, dividends, Weardale Lithium
(Sharecast News) - Amazon profits soared once again in the first quarter of 2024, the company announced on Tuesday - the latest in a series of robust earnings reports for the retail giant. The company attributed the boost to artificial intelligence and advertising sales. Amazon reported overall revenue of $143.3bn in the first three months of the year - up 13% from the same period in 2023 and surpassing Wall Street expectations of $142.65bn. The e-commerce giant reported an increase of more than 200% to $15bn, with net income more than tripling to $10.4bn from $3.17bn at the same time in 2023. - Guardian
Tuesday newspaper round-up: Meta, ExxonMobil, Very Group
(Sharecast News) - The Federal Communications Commission on Monday fined the largest US wireless carriers nearly $200m for illegally sharing access to customers' location information. The FCC is finalizing fines first proposed in February 2020, including $80m for T-Mobile; $12m for Sprint, which T-Mobile has since acquired; $57m for AT&T, and nearly $47m for Verizon. - Guardian
Monday newspaper round-up: Thames Water, Brexit, Babylon
(Sharecast News) - Senior Whitehall officials fear Thames Water's financial collapse could trigger a rise in government borrowing costs not seen since the chaos of the Liz Truss mini-budget, the Guardian can reveal. Such is their concern about the impact on wider borrowing costs for the UK, even beyond utilities and infrastructure, that they believe Thames should be renationalised before the general election. Officials in the Treasury and the UK's Debt Management Office fear that, unless the UK's biggest water company is renationalised as soon as possible, "prolonged uncertainty" about its fate could "damage confidence in UK plc at a sensitive time", with elections in the UK and the US later this year. - Guardian
Sunday share tips: Centrica, Lancashire Holdings
(Sharecast News) - The Sunday Times's Lucy Tobin told her readers to book their profits in Centrica and 'sell'.

Important information: This information is not a personal recommendation for any particular investment. If you are unsure about the suitability of an investment you should speak to one of Fidelity’s advisers or an authorised financial adviser of your choice. When you are thinking about investing in shares, it’s generally a good idea to consider holding them alongside other investments in a diversified portfolio of assets. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future returns.

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