London open: European bond yields keep rising, stocks down
Stocks began the morning moving lower amid mixed reports regarding the progress made at a meeting between Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and the head of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker.
Chemicals
7,770.69
08:05 23/09/24
easyJet
517.40p
08:05 23/09/24
Frasers Group
838.50p
08:05 23/09/24
FTSE 100
8,221.69
08:05 23/09/24
FTSE 250
20,826.15
08:05 23/09/24
FTSE 350
4,539.77
08:05 23/09/24
FTSE All-Share
4,497.05
08:05 23/09/24
General Retailers
4,220.76
08:04 23/09/24
Health Care Equipment & Services
11,167.32
08:05 23/09/24
Johnson Matthey
1,459.00p
08:05 23/09/24
NMC Health
938.40p
16:44 27/04/20
Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution
4,928.34
16:30 13/09/24
Petrofac Ltd.
17.26p
08:05 23/09/24
Smith & Nephew
1,146.00p
08:05 23/09/24
Travel & Leisure
7,874.96
08:04 23/09/24
As of 08:55 the FTSE 100 was lower by 87.36 points to 6,863.10.
A large drop in Chinese stocks and residual jitters following Wednesday’s bout of volatility and selling in sovereign bond markets also featured prominently in analysts’ comments on Thursday morning.
After Wednesday night’s meeting, Tsipras reportedly said that both sides were now “very close” on the issue of the primary deficit targets which will be asked of Athens.
Then again, differences on pensions do remain, as some analysts pointed out. The talks were set to continue today and markets’ focus to turn to Friday’s looming payment of €304m to the International Monetary Fund.
On Wednesday, Dutch and French 10-year bond yields jumped by 16 and 15 basis points, respectively, even as those on Greek debt of similar maturity ended the session 62 basis points tighter.
In his press conference following Wednesday's meeting of the European Central Bank's governing council Mario Draghi said investors would have to get used to higher volatility in bond markets.
As of 09:30 the yield on the 10-year benchmark German bund was nine basis points higher at 0.97%, having started the day at their highest since October 2014.
According to Sky News, there have been reports of heavy withdrawals from ATMs in Athens in recent days.
Thursday’s economic agenda was rather light, with only the latest US weekly unemployment claims data holding the potential to move markets, while the meeting of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee was expected to be a non-event.
Shanghai's benchmark stockmarket index ended the session 0.76% higher at 4,947.1 after dipping 3% at one point during the session.
The UK Halifax house price index slipped by 0.1% month-on-month in May, coming in well below the 0.2% rise forecast by economists.
easyJet leads gains on Footsie
Low-cost airline easyJet said it carried nearly 6.5m passengers last month, up 7.2% from 6.05m in May 2014. The load factor, which is a gauge of how many seats were actually occupied by passengers on flights, rose 2.2 percentage points to 91.6% from May 2014.
Petrofac successfully extended and amended a syndicated revolving five-year credit facility. The size of the funding facility was maintained by lenders at $1.2bn and would run to 2020, with the oil explorer being granted the option to extend it twice, for an additional year each time – if its creditors consent.
Sports Direct International promoted Matt Pearson to acting chief financial officer following the departure of its previous CFO 18 months ago. “The odd thing is that his role is still said to be on an interim basis, implying that the search for a permanent FD goes on…” independent retail analyst Nick Bubb said in.
Medical technology group Smith&Nephew chose to remove one of its hip devices from the market, based on recent performance data. Analysis of the component, which is part of its Birmingham Hip Resurfacing System, shows that revision rates associated with men requiring a particular size, and with all women patients, exceed the current benchmark established by the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
Platinum and palladium refiner Johnson Matthey posted a 22% rise in fiscal 2015 pre-tax profit to £495.8m, boosted by the £69.7m sale of the Gold and Silver Refining business in March 2015.
NMC Health completed its acquisition of Americare Group, which provides in-home healthcare services in the United Arab Emirates, ahead of schedule. Excluding synergies, the transaction is expected to be accretive with a positive effect on NMC's consolidated margins and yield an attractive return on invested capital (ROIC), it said.