UK insurers receive approval for solvency II rules

The top flight index is seen starting 32 points higher than Friday’s close at 6,270.

Stocks to watch

Three major UK insurers said they had received approval to use their internal models to comply with the new European-wide Solvency II requirements to protect against financial shocks.

RSA, Prudential and Legal & General are among 19 companies to get full or partial approval for their plans from the UK's Prudential Regulation Authority.

The new rules come into force on 1 January 2016.

FTSE 100 engineering company Meggitt has revealed it expects full year 2016 organic growth to be in the “low-single-digits”.

The company updated the market on the short and medium term trends, as well as providing guidance for the 2016 financial year.

It noted that next year there will be low-to-mid single digit revenue growth in civil OE, civil aftermarket and military.

There is also expected to be a decline in energy, reflecting weakness in the broader energy market.

In the press

Sales of homes costing more than £1.5m have fallen by one-fifth in the year since the government introduced reforms to the stamp duty tax on property purchases. Under the changes introduced in December 2014, the “slab” system was swept away in favour of a progressive levy, under which properties that cost more than £938,000 incur a bigger charge. – Financial Times

Britain’s manufacturers expect 2015 to be their worst year for growth since 2009 and next year will be little better, according to a survey which highlights the dilemma that the Bank of England faces as it considers whether to raise interest rates. A survey by the EEF, the manufacturers’ association, found that only car companies and chemicals firms remained buoyant while the rest of the manufacturing sector warned it expected output and employment to stagnate. – Guardian

Royal Bank of Scotland faces trouble next year because of its huge exposure to commercial property, an area that some experts believe to be a dangerous bubble. With George Osborne keen to sell off the government’s 73 per cent stake in the bank, research suggests that it may struggle. The bank, bailed out with £45 billion during the financial crisis, may be hit the hardest by next year’s stress tests of the country’s biggest banks because of growing expectations that they will focus on commercial property loans. – The Times

US close

Wall Street gained even as a stronger-than-expected non-farm jobs report added to expectations that the central bank would very likely raise its main policy rate when it met next met.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped by 369.96 points to 17,847.63, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were respectively 42.07 and 104.74 higher by the end of trading, at 2,091.69 and 5,142.27 points each, respectively.

That marked the ninth week of gains for the benchmark S&P 500 out of the last ten, with trading volumes on Wall Street modestly above its three-month average on Friday.