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London open: Stocks start higher as China data overlooked
London stocks made an initial move higher on Monday morning, as traders ignored lacklustre Chinese trade numbers and they digested last week’s news and a smattering of encouraging UK data post-Brexit data.
The FTSE 100 was up 26 points to 6,819.47 after half an hour of trading, while the FTSE 250 had risen more than 125 points to 17,590.61.
The FTSE is now sitting at its best level since last June, noted analyst Connor Campbell at Spreader: “The index still dining out on last week’s Bank of England stimulus package and US non-farm surprise double whammy. It will be interesting to see how much mileage the FTSE gets out of this goodwill, especially since there isn’t much else for it to preoccupy itself with this Monday.”
Earlier, China’s exports had been shown to have fallen 4.4% in dollar terms in July, with imports declining 12.5%, according to Beijing’s General Admission of Customs.
Later in the week China will also publish inflation data as well as July retail sales and industrial production data.
But the market was still likely to be carrying good momentum over from Friday’s strong non-farm payrolls report, which has added weight to expectations of a rate hike from the Federal Reserve this year.
With no major UK data releases due, some less heralded domestic surveys may have added to the optimism, with business confidence data declining, according to BDO’s business trends figures for July, but by less than expected after analysts feared the Brexit vote would hit confidence harder. The accountancy group noted minor falls in optimism, to 97.9 from 98.9, based on growth prospects six months out, and in output to 98.2 from 99.0. BDO suggested that the “initial impact of the Brexit vote has been less severe than expected”.
High street consumer spending data from Visa and Markit showed the UK spending rose 1.6% year on year in July, with hotels, restaurants and bars leading the way, up 8.9%.
In corporate news, first-half results from Shire confirmed the drugmaker’s strong performance so far in 2016, completing two acquisitions and continuing to grow its underlying business. Just a week after it published second-quarter results, Shire posted interim numbers that showed total reported product sales up 36% to $3.9bn, thanks to double digit product sales across all legacy businesses and $559m of product sales from almost one month from the newly acquired Baxalta. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rose 35% on the previous year to $1.9bn.
Support services and construction group Interserve has been awarded a two-year extension of its contract to provide security services to the BBC worth more than £20m. Interserve has been providing the BBC with security services since 2014, when it was awarded the company’s National Security Contract on a three-year deal.
Global medical technology business Smith & Nephew announced on Monday that it has completed the divestiture of its gynaecology business to Medtronic, for $350m, of which it would return the majority to investors. The FTSE 100 firm said the sale of its gynaecology business demonstrates its “disciplined strategic approach” to capital deployment, with shareholders benefiting directly through a $300m share buy-back programme, which is expected to be broadly neutral to adjusted earnings per share in 2017 and to reduce EPSA by less than one cent in 2016.
