London open: Stocks gain in quiet trade; Burberry out of fashion

London stocks rose in early trade on Friday, taking their cue from a positive session in Asia.

At 0850 BST, the FTSE 100 was up 0.4% at 8,412.00.

Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor, said: "Amid broad buying interest the FTSE rose to bring its cumulative year to date performance to a positive 8.7%, and within a whisker of reaching the previous record levels which were achieved in May."

Investors were mulling the latest data from Nationwide, which showed that house prices unexpectedly dipped on the month in August, but rose at their fastest annual pace since December 2022.

On the month, prices were down 0.2% following a 0.3% increase in July, and versus expectations for a 0.2% increase.

On the year, house prices picked up 2.4% in August following a 2.1% gain the month before and versus expectations for a 2.9% jump. Prices are still around 3% below the all-time highs recorded in the summer of 2022, Nationwide said.

The average price of a home stood at £265,375 in August compared to £266,334 in July.

Nationwide chief economist Robert Gardner said: "While house price growth and activity remain subdued by historic standards, they nevertheless present a picture of resilience in the context of the higher interest rate environment and where house prices remain high relative to average earnings (which makes raising a deposit more challenging).

"Providing the economy continues to recover steadily, as we expect, housing market activity is likely to strengthen gradually as affordability constraints ease through a combination of modestly lower interest rates and earnings outpacing house price growth."

Elsewhere, data from BRC-Sensormatic IQ showed that retail footfall across the UK experienced a slight decline of 0.4% year-on-year in August.

That represented a significant improvement from July's 3.3% drop, indicating a degree of resilience in the sector despite disruptions caused by riots earlier in the month.

High street footfall saw a marginal decline of 0.3% compared to August 2023, recovering from the 2.7% decrease recorded in July.

Retail parks outperformed other retail locations, with footfall increasing by 2.6% year-on-year, a notable improvement from the 0.8% decrease seen in the prior month.

Shopping centres, while still experiencing a decrease in foot traffic, showed signs of recovery with a 1.8% drop, better than the 3.9% fall in July.

"As violent disorder erupted across the country earlier in the month, footfall was severely impacted as many people stayed away from shopping destinations," said Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium.

"Retail parks saw footfall levels rise in the week following the riots as some continued to avoid high streets and shopping centres.

"Footfall recovered across all destinations towards the end of the month when warmer weather and summer sales prompted shoppers to browse their favourite stores."

There wasn’t much happening on the equities front, but Burberry fell ahead of its expected demotion from the FTSE 100.

Rentokil was just a smidgen lower as JPMorgan placed the shares on "negative catalyst watch" into the 17th October third-quarter results.

RS Group gained, however, as JPM opened a "positive catalyst watch" on the shares ahead of the capital markets day on 24 September.

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 8,412.00 0.39%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 21,101.68 0.34%
techMARK (TASX) 4,940.89 0.48%

FTSE 100 - Risers

LondonMetric Property (LMP) 202.60p 1.86%
SEGRO (SGRO) 873.20p 1.51%
Prudential (PRU) 663.40p 1.50%
Land Securities Group (LAND) 626.00p 1.46%
Melrose Industries (MRO) 489.90p 1.28%
SSE (SSE) 1,896.50p 1.20%
Vistry Group (VTY) 1,361.00p 1.19%
Unite Group (UTG) 956.00p 1.16%
Smurfit Westrock (DI) (SWR) 3,597.00p 1.07%
HSBC Holdings (HSBA) 667.60p 1.03%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Burberry Group (BRBY) 667.00p -1.30%
easyJet (EZJ) 474.90p -0.90%
Rentokil Initial (RTO) 479.20p -0.73%
Smith (DS) (SMDS) 469.80p -0.68%
Relx plc (REL) 3,558.00p -0.56%
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) 7,592.00p -0.55%
Whitbread (WTB) 2,921.00p -0.54%
Scottish Mortgage Inv Trust (SMT) 822.80p -0.46%
Spirax Group (SPX) 7,665.00p -0.45%
Experian (EXPN) 3,693.00p -0.27%

FTSE 250 - Risers

PureTech Health (PRTC) 174.40p 4.93%
Close Brothers Group (CBG) 546.50p 3.70%
Dr. Martens (DOCS) 73.40p 2.73%
British Land Company (BLND) 410.80p 2.65%
Fidelity China Special Situations (FCSS) 182.00p 2.36%
Grafton Group Ut (CDI) (GFTU) 1,080.00p 1.98%
Great Portland Estates (GPE) 338.50p 1.96%
NCC Group (NCC) 158.00p 1.94%
Derwent London (DLN) 2,342.00p 1.91%
Savills (SVS) 1,186.00p 1.89%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

Bloomsbury Publishing (BMY) 700.00p -3.31%
Jupiter Fund Management (JUP) 83.90p -2.21%
Morgan Sindall Group (MGNS) 2,925.00p -2.17%
ITV (ITV) 78.50p -1.81%
W.A.G Payment Solutions (WPS) 65.00p -1.81%
WH Smith (SMWH) 1,260.00p -1.72%
AO World (AO.) 111.00p -1.07%
Currys (CURY) 79.00p -1.00%
Bank of Georgia Group (BGEO) 4,565.00p -0.98%
Worldwide Healthcare Trust (WWH) 363.50p -0.95%