ADVFN Logo

We could not find any results for:
Make sure your spelling is correct or try broadening your search.

Trending Now

Toplists

It looks like you aren't logged in.
Click the button below to log in and view your recent history.

Hot Features

Registration Strip Icon for default Register for Free to get streaming real-time quotes, interactive charts, live options flow, and more.

ADVFN Morning London Market Report: Tuesday 15 August 2017

Share On Facebook
share on Linkedin
Print

London open: Stocks nudge higher ahead of Brexit papers, inflation releases

© ADVFN

London stocks looked to bounce back for a second session as sabre-rattling between the US and North Korea returned to background noise, with traders focused on the UK’s potential for a ‘soft Brexit’ and inflation data to come out later.

After just over half an hour of trading on Tuesday, the FTSE 100 was up just over 14 points or 0.2% to 7,368.38.

The positive start in London comes as tensions in the Korean peninsula are felt to be tapering off, said analyst Michael Hewson at CMC Markets.

“Tension does appear to have come down a notch or two helped in some part by more clarity on the US side in saying that they weren’t looking to a policy on regime change in North Korea, but also by China as they surprisingly agreed to ban imports of North Korean iron, lead and coal as part of the new UN sanctions regime, thus increasing the pressure on the rogue state to ease back on its aggressive stance towards the US.”

On the other hand, shares of defence-related stocks BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce Holdings were both being well supported.

The big domestic focus is on the government’s Brexit plans, with a new position paper due to be published on Tuesday morning and widely covered in media reports overnight.

Brexit secretary David Davis is expected to announce plans for the present customs arrangements with the European Union to stay in place for an “interim period” that could last for up to three years. The Times said the position paper will say Britain is looking at introducing a “temporary customs union” during which there will be no need for companies to fill in additional paperwork, ensuring that goods move smoothly across the border with the rest of the EU.

The pound was down almost 0.2% on the dollar to 1.2942 in early trading but up nearly 0.2% versus the euro at 1.1022.

“Sterling didn’t budge much at all despite signs we may be in for a smoother Brexit,” said Neil Wilson at ETX Capital. “There was little to no uplift so far from the proposal for Britain to have a customs union with the EU for some years after the official Brexit date in 2019.

“The market is treating anything from London with due caution, rightly so given the open splits in the cabinet and precarious tenure of Theresa May.”

Before that the focus will be on the squeezed UK consumer, with the Office for National Statistics publishing consumer price data at 0930 BST, which is forecast to show inflation rising from a 2.6% year-on-year pace to 2.7%.

On the economic calendar for later in the day, US retail sales figures for July were scheduled for release at 1330 BST, alongside the Federal Reserve bank of New York’s regional manufacturing gauge.

In company news, Standard Life Aberdeen was up the top of the leaderboard for the second day after its merger was completed.

Shire was higher as it announced the application for Europe-wide marketing of its lifitegrast dry-eye disease drug has been approved by the UK. “If approved, lifitegrast would be the first and only treatment in a new class of drugs to address the signs and symptoms of dry eye disease in adults in Europe,” the company said.

Financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown saw its shares fall despite confirming it had “sufficiently strong financial, liquidity and capital positions to execute its strategy without further constraints and to operate a sustainable and progressive ordinary dividend policy going forward.” The board added that it “remains committed to paying special dividends in future years when sufficient excess cash and capital exist after taking account of the group’s growth, investment and prospective regulatory capital requirements at the time.” Full year net new business inflows rose 15% to £6.9bn.

Riverstone Energy Limited (REL) has received the balance of $14m from the sale of its interests in Rock Oil last October, which had been held in escrow. The investment company’s manager, Riverstone Energy Capital Partners, will acquire just over £1.1m REL shares through secondary market purchases at prices below the prevailing published net asset value of the company over a period of up to four months, in order to satisfy the terms of the performance allocation payment.

Georgia Healthcare reported a an 79.8% jump in profits before tax to 11.3m Georgian Lari at the half-yaer stage as its top line bulged by 81.6% to GEL184.6m. Yet earnings per share were 2.7% lower versus the comparable year-ago period to GEL0.05 (4p) due to the impact of extraordinary charges. Sales were driven by a 261.5% surge at its pharma unit to reach GEL110.9m, which also benefitted from a five percentage point increase in its gross profit margins to 23.5%.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR FREE ON ADVFN, the world's leading stocks and shares information website, provides the private investor with all the latest high-tech trading tools and includes live price data streaming, stock quotes and the option to access 'Level 2' data on all of the world's key exchanges (LSE, NYSE, NASDAQ, Euronext etc).

This area of the ADVFN.com site is for independent financial commentary. These blogs are provided by independent authors via a common carrier platform and do not represent the opinions of ADVFN Plc. ADVFN Plc does not monitor, approve, endorse or exert editorial control over these articles and does not therefore accept responsibility for or make any warranties in connection with or recommend that you or any third party rely on such information. The information available at ADVFN.com is for your general information and use and is not intended to address your particular requirements. In particular, the information does not constitute any form of advice or recommendation by ADVFN.COM and is not intended to be relied upon by users in making (or refraining from making) any investment decisions. Authors may or may not have positions in stocks that they are discussing but it should be considered very likely that their opinions are aligned with their trading and that they hold positions in companies, forex, commodities and other instruments they discuss.

Leave A Reply

 
Do you want to write for our Newspaper? Get in touch: newspaper@advfn.com