Retail Super Thursday, Lloyds, economy and equity release

More bumper retail results today with M&S reporting an increase in clothing and homeware sales over Christmas for the first time in two years. Surpassing expectations, sales in the division rose by 2.3 per cent. John Lewis also reported results this morning, revealing that Christmas sales increased by 2.7 per cent. Meanwhile, a demand for fresh food helped Tesco over the festive period. According to the BBC, the supermarket giant reported that Christmas like-for-like sales, which strip out the impact of new store openings, grew 0.7 per cent in the UK, and were up by 0.3 per cent across the group as a whole. In addition, Dunelm, the homeware retailer, has reported a 0.2 per cent rise in like-for-like sales over Christmas to £235.7 million, and Debenhams revealed like-for-like sales rose 3.5 per cent over the same period. Like-for-like sales at Mothercare rose 1 per cent in the 13 weeks to 7 January, and group revenues increased 12.3