London open: Stocks slide after heavy Wall St losses

London stocks slid in early trade on Wednesday, taking their cue from a heavy selloff on Wall Street on the back of poor manufacturing data, with sharp falls for Nvidia also weighing on sentiment.

At 0825 BST, the FTSE 100 was down 0.6% at 8,245.26 .

Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote Bank, said: "September began on an ugly note, to say the least. The US equities tumbled after the latest ISM data showed a fifth month of contraction in the US manufacturing, and at accelerated pace. The latter revived the recession worries ahead of this week’s critical US jobs data, and sent the S&P 500 more than 2% down. This was the worst selloff since August 5, when a weak jobs data from the US had boosted the recession worries, the expectation of a 50bp cut from the Federal Reserve and resulted in an almost 10% selloff of the S&P 500.

"The technology stocks led losses yesterday. Nasdaq 100 dived more than 3%, as Nvidia tumbled nearly 10% as part of the broader macroeconomic worries and suspected AI fatigue, and another 2.42% in the afterhours trading on news that the DoJ sent subpoenas to the company because it suspects that Nvidia violated antitrust laws, made switching harder to other chipmakers and penalized companies that didn’t use Nvidia’s AI chips exclusively."

In equity markets, housebuilder Barratt Developments was on the back foot as it reported a sharp fall in annual profit, citing cost-of-living pressures, higher mortgage rates and limited consumer confidence. The company said pre-tax profit slumped to £170.5m from £705m, with completions down 18.6% to 14,000.

Segro declined after saying it had agreed to buy rival Tritax EuroBox in a deal with an implied enterprise value of around £1.1bn including debt.

Hilton Food also fell despite posting a jump in interim adjusted operating profit, while Direct Line nudged lower as the insurer’s half-year operating profit missed expectations.

Compass Group was a little firmer after an upgrade to ‘outperform’ by BNP Paribas Exane.

Airtel Africa tumbled after a downgrade to ‘neutral’ by JPMorgan, while British Gas owner Centrica lost ground after a cut to ‘hold’ at HSBC.

Packaging firm DS Smith was also in the red after a downgrade to ‘hold’ by Stifel.

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 8,245.26 -0.64%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 20,631.74 -0.85%
techMARK (TASX) 4,856.93 -0.92%

FTSE 100 - Risers

Pershing Square Holdings Ltd NPV (PSH) 3,686.00p 0.60%
Compass Group (CPG) 2,417.00p 0.50%
Imperial Brands (IMB) 2,202.00p 0.41%
Reckitt Benckiser Group (RKT) 4,451.00p 0.18%
British American Tobacco (BATS) 2,869.00p 0.07%
Haleon (HLN) 382.60p 0.05%
RELX FINANCE BV 3.375% GTD NTS 20/03/33 (BW73) 99.72p 0.00%
Melrose Industries (MRO) 464.20p -0.11%
Coca-Cola HBC AG (CDI) (CCH) 2,816.00p -0.14%
BP (BP.) 415.70p -0.16%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Airtel Africa (AAF) 108.70p -6.29%
Convatec Group (CTEC) 226.20p -4.80%
Scottish Mortgage Inv Trust (SMT) 789.20p -2.76%
JD Sports Fashion (JD.) 130.05p -2.62%
CRH (CDI) (CRH) 6,648.00p -2.00%
Centrica (CNA) 123.45p -1.98%
Rightmove (RMV) 647.80p -1.85%
Smith (DS) (SMDS) 465.60p -1.77%
Flutter Entertainment (DI) (FLTR) 16,045.00p -1.75%
SEGRO (SGRO) 865.00p -1.70%

FTSE 250 - Risers

Balanced Commercial Property Trust Limited (BCPT) 94.40p 9.51%
Mitie Group (MTO) 124.60p 2.13%
HICL Infrastructure (HICL) 127.20p 1.11%
Tritax Eurobox (GBP) (EBOX) 67.00p 0.75%
Jlen Environmental Assets Group Limited NPV (JLEN) 95.80p 0.74%
Investec (INVP) 575.50p 0.70%
Supermarket Income Reit (SUPR) 73.50p 0.68%
HGCapital Trust (HGT) 514.00p 0.59%
Crest Nicholson Holdings (CRST) 206.80p 0.58%
ICG Enterprise Trust (ICGT) 1,216.00p 0.50%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

SThree (STEM) 385.00p -4.70%
Allianz Technology Trust (ATT) 325.00p -4.13%
Moonpig Group (MOON) 200.00p -4.08%
Discoverie Group (DSCV) 589.00p -4.07%
Breedon Group (BREE) 398.50p -3.51%
AO World (AO.) 110.00p -3.51%
Polar Capital Technology Trust (PCT) 2,770.00p -3.32%
Carnival (CCL) 1,112.50p -3.13%
Bank of Georgia Group (BGEO) 4,340.00p -2.69%
Edinburgh Worldwide Inv Trust (EWI) 143.00p -2.46%