Before the bell: Strategic Shift Pays Off

Shares of Japanese carmakers continue to fall, while the gold price hits a new record.

An hour and a half into the session, the Nasdaq was up by 0.5%. However, the tech index couldn’t hold onto those gains and ended the day 0.5% lower than Wednesday’s close. The S&P 500 dropped 0.3%. European markets also ended in the red yesterday, with average losses of around 0.6%. The London Stock Exchange did slightly better with a loss of just 0.3%. In Brussels, Elia performed well. The combination of the share and the subscription right delivered a 3.6% gain for shareholders. Tessenderlo (+4.2%) and Umicore (+8.3%) also posted strong results. Investors rewarded Umicore for its revised strategy, which now focuses less on battery technologies.

Asian stock markets are taking a hit this morning. In Japan, shares are down an average of 2.3%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index is losing 0.9%. Carmakers Toyota (-2.8%) and Nissan (-3.5%) continue to suffer from the import tariffs announced by Trump. Over the past year, Toyota’s share price has dropped 29%, while Nissan has fallen 34%. Meanwhile, the gold price hit a new all-time high this morning, reaching 3,084 dollar per troy ounce. That’s a 5.7% increase over the past month. Today we’re expecting inflation figures from both Belgium and the United States. The University of Michigan will also release its index measuring U.S. consumer confidence.

Who’s Next?

“Are you being served?” Captain Peacock, Mr. Humphries, and Mrs. Slocombe certainly did their best to please the customers of their upscale clothing store. Grace Brothers is long gone. In fact, I believe none of the cast members from the classic British sitcom from the 1970s and ‘80s are still alive today. Britons now buy their clothes from more modern retailers like Next. And they continue to do so: Next plc announced yesterday that the start of the year went better than expected. The company is now forecasting higher profits. The share price closed 10.5% higher and now sits at 11,035 GBp. That’s pence—meaning the share price is now 110.35 pounds (132 euro). Next also pulled rival Marks & Spencer up by 3.5%. Some shops are still turning a profit.

Shareholders Foot the Bill

Aedifica wants to give its chairman a 60% pay raise. The man in question, Serge Wibaut, currently earns just over 100,000 euro a year—but apparently, that’s not enough to oversee the company’s strategy. Strange, since a chairman doesn’t work full-time. Of course, they attend board meetings. The CEO and other executive team members hold full-time roles within the company. They report to the chairman and other board members, whose job it is to safeguard shareholders’ interests. But are they really doing that when they propose a 60% raise for the chairman and a 20% increase for the other board members? It seems to me they’re thinking more about themselves. Shareholders must vote on the proposal. I expect some to vote against it, though probably not enough to block the raises.

Did you know…

that the average chairman of a Bel20 company earned 203,036 euro in 2023? That’s according to a calculation by the newspaper De Tijd. Compensation levels have remained virtually unchanged over the past ten years.

This article was translated from Dutch and was originally published on Spaarvarkens.be.