Daily Stock Market Report (Mon 23rd March 2026) - SPI, TND, MEGP, APN, MEGP

Good morning!

I was sorry to see that the comments section on Friday degenerated into hostility.

The FTSE is down by 7% over the past month, which never helps, and the news has been rather bleak at times. But despite all of that, I think that the atmosphere here has generally remained very positive. Let's keep it that way.

Cheers,

Graham

Monday market open: over the weekend, Trump threatened to blow up Iran's power plants if the Strait of Hormuz does not reopen tonight (by 7.44pm New York time, to be precise). Meanwhile, Iran has said that it will close the Strait "completely" if its power plants are attacked. The Speaker of Iran's Parliament has also threatened financial entities that buy US treasury bonds ("Purchase them, and you purchase a strike on your HQ and assets"). 

With this frightening rhetoric as backdrop, the FTSE is set to open lower by another 130 points, at 9780. 

11.45: Goodwin gets the prize for the worst RNS of the day, issuing what amounts to a profit warning at 9.19am. The RNS even began with the phrase "It is encouraging that the Group's trading performance remains in line with expectations..." before delivering the bad news. Bad luck for anyone who was buying this at 9am!