LIVE BUSINESS: FTSE 100 nears all-time high; Metro Bank looks to return to profit; HSBC prepares share buyback

Women are drinking more Guinness than ever before and its rise in popularity shows no sign of slowing down.

Announcing its annual results, Guinness maker Diageo said 27 per cent more women were drinking the “black drink” compared with last year.

This comes as celebrities including reality TV star Kim Kardashian and pop stars Olivia Rodrigo and Beyoncé continue to reinforce the drink’s “cool” reputation after posting photos of themselves drinking pints.

GSK has cut its vaccine sales forecast for 2024 after quarterly revenue from its blockbuster shingles and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines missed expectations, sending its shares lower.

Chief Executive Emma Walmsley’s bet on infectious disease drugs and vaccines, including the blockbuster new respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine Arexvy, has paid off as GSK faces a combination of patent expirations and declining revenue from current best-selling products by the end of this decade.

But second-quarter sales of Arexvy, which launched in the United States last year and took two-thirds of the market in a blow to rival Pfizer’s vaccine, amounted to 62 million pounds, below the average analyst forecast of 70 million pounds.

Taylor Wimpey expects to build up to 10,000 homes this year on the back of a second-half recovery after high interest rates hit demand and hit profits in the first half.

The FTSE 250 housebuilder posted a 22.6 per cent drop in operating profit to £182.3m for the six months ended June 30, with sales down 7 per cent and house completions down around 7.7 per cent to 4,728.

Taylor Wimpey blamed “delayed interest rate cuts and comparatively high mortgage rates”.

Metro Bank expects to return to profitability in the fourth quarter of the year after reducing losses in the first half.

The high street lender posted an underlying pre-tax loss of £26.8m for the first six months of the year, down from a loss of £33m in the second half of 2023. In the first half of 2023, the firm reported profits of £16.1m.

The bank said the loss was due to a lower net interest margin – the spread between the interest banks earn on loans and the interest they pay on borrowing – of 1.64 percent, compared with 1.85 percent in the second half of last year.

HSBC will buy back $3 billion worth of shares from investors after the lender’s first-half profit beat expectations, boosted by growth in its wealth management division.

The FTSE 100-listed bank’s pre-tax profit fell 0.4 percent to $21.6 billion in the first half of the year, but beat analysts’ estimates of $20.5 billion.

The $3 billion share buyback plan follows a $5 billion buyback announced earlier this year, bringing the total value of share buybacks to $18 billion during outgoing CEO Noel Quinn’s four-year tenure.

The FTSE 100 is up 1.4 percent in midday trading and is nearing an all-time intraday high of 8,474.71 points.

The rally comes amid broader weakness in equity markets and marks growing expectations that the Bank of England will cut the base rate by 25 basis points to 5 percent.

Energy and mining stocks lead the gains, while strong corporate updates from companies such as HSBC also boost the index.