The US economy returned to growth in the third quarter, but US markets were broadly flat after Meta, the owner of Facebook, announced a big fall in profits. In the UK, shares were broadly flat. On the plus side, profits doubled at Shell; on the minus side, Lloyds warned the outlook for the UK was weak, and said house prices would fall 8% next year. The FTSE 100 closed up 17 points at 7,073, while the mid-cap FTSE 250 edged down 23 points to 18,082.

In today’s movers, investors were buying shares in estate agent Foxtons, even with the poor outlook for house prices. And we look at one retailer where the share price has more than halved in just one day.

Shares are up 6.5% at Foxtons (FOXT) after the estate agent chain said that trading was strong in the last three months. Revenues are 25% higher at £43.8 million and all areas of the business are growing. Foxtons said it expected its full-year numbers to beat current City expectations. Foxtons did admit that its sales business might be vulnerable to a choppy property market but argued that its sizeable lettings business should be more resilient.

It’s tempting to see Foxtons as a ‘buy’ right now. After all, this is a fast-growing business trading on a multiple of just 10 times profits. But in previous recessions we’ve seen some estate agent chains being absolutely battered, and the risk of that happening to Foxtons is just too high. The share price closed at 30.75p.

Profits have more than doubled at Shell (SHEL) and the shares are up 5.5% at £24.25p as a result. Third quarter profits came in at £8.2bn, up from £3.5 billion a year earlier, and higher than analysts had forecast. Sensibly, Shell is using some of the cash to buy back shares. It plans to spend around £3.4 billion on share buybacks over the next three months. The dividend yield is currently at 4%.

The big rise in profits has been driven by the higher oil price. The Brent Crude oil price went as low as $69 last November and hit as a peak of $123 in the spring. It’s become clear since then that Russian oil has been reaching the global market regardless of sanctions, and that’s pushed the oil price down again. But even now, Brent Crude is still around $94.

Shell has so far avoided paying any windfall taxes to the UK government by investing in new fields in the North Sea. However, there’s a good chance that the government will impose further windfall taxes on the industry soon. It’s hard to know where the Shell price is going to go next – it all depends on the oil price.

BP (BP) was also up today, rising 3.4% at 481.9p.

Wizz Air (WIZZ) has had a rough couple of years. Like all the airlines it was hit by the pandemic and then the rising oil price in 2022. On top of that, the Ukraine crisis has been especially bad for Wizz as the airline is based in Hungary. That makes it vulnerable to any ‘spillover’ in the war. So it’s no great surprise that the shares were down about 70% this year at this morning’s opening.

However, Wizz Air’s trading has been improving in spite of the poor backdrop and last month the airline carried 4.34 million passengers, up 52% from a year earlier. Investors were buying today and Wizz was the biggest riser in the mid-cap FTSE 250 with an 8% jump to £16.99.

Shares at online greetings card and gifts business Moonpig (MOON) are up 7.4% at 140.9p. There’s no obvious reason for the rise but the company did say last month that it would focus more on ‘peak trading periods’. And there’s a peak trading period coming up…

Inspecs (SPEC) has seen a massive share price crash today. The shares are down 55% at 51p. The company makes glasses using various brands including Superdry and Radley London and it’s been hit by news of declining sales in Western Europe. Apparently both the macroeconomic climate and consumer confidence in Europe ‘have deteriorated sharply’ since last month. Order intake is significantly down, and Inspecs expects the German and French markets to remain weak in early 2023. The retirement of the chairman, Ian MacLaurin, may also have contributed to the share price fall – MacLaurin was the boss of Tesco back in the 90s.

Until today, the business has performed pretty well since it listed on the stock market in 2020. The issue is that eyewear is a competitive business and Inspecs doesn’t bring anything particularly unusual to the party. So it doesn’t look like a compelling investment.

Production delays have triggered a 20% crash in the ITM Power (ITM) share price to 83.7p. ITM Power is a hydrogen technology company and has been developing a new range of electrolysers to be used in the production of ‘green’ hydrogen. This new range has been delayed and, as a result, ITM says that revenue for the year should come in at around £23 million. That’s at the bottom end of previous forecasts. The delays may also mean that ITM has to offer larger warranties to customers, which will mean a bigger loss than currently forecast. Today’s news follows the departure of the CEO last month, and the shares have performed dreadfully. Including today’s fall, the shares are down 83% over the last year.

No doubt the production of green energy will grow dramatically from here, but it’s hard to know if ITM Power will be a winner in this new area, and it’s ever harder to value the stock.

Mining giant Anglo American (AAL) said today that ‘dislocation in the global economy’ is continuing to affect its business, and the shares fell 2% to £27.16 in response. Anglo American’s performance in the last quarter was mixed. Rough diamond production rose 4% as Russian competitors were hit by sanctions, and the coal business also performed well. However, copper production fell 6% due to lower grades being reached in Anglo’s mines in Chile. Iron ore production was 5% down.

The big issue for miners like Anglo is the outlook in China. If the Chinese economy picks up, the copper market should boom and Anglo will fly. But President Xi seems more interested in COVID lockdowns and national security than pushing for faster economic growth.

Africa telecoms business Airtel Africa (AAF) says that its customer base has increased almost 10% to 135 million people, yet the share price has tumbled 15% to 107.8p.

So what’s the problem?

Well, firstly, there’s been a very small miss on revenue. First-half revenue grew 13% to $2.56 billion, just below the forecast figure of $2.58 billion. What’s more, pre-tax profits fell 1.5% to $330 million. Profits were hit by falls in several African currencies and some derivative losses. (In other words, Airtel made some financial bets that didn’t work out well.)

In truth, today’s share price fall seems overdone. Granted, net debt is a little high, but telecoms in Africa should be a good long-term growth story and the valuation looks reasonable.

Now take a look at our weekly share tips