Morning Euro Markets Bulletin

ADVFN  Morning Euro Markets Bulletin Daily world financial news Tuesday, 06 March 2018 09:54:11 Monitor Quote Charts News CFD's Compare Brokers Free BB   Get Your FREE Weekly Bitcoin Newsletter From Guardian Stockbrokers Click Here To Subscribe For FREE Today All trading involves risk. Losses can exceed deposits. London open: Smurfit paces equity gains as it rejects bid approach FTSE 100 Euronext Dax perf CAC 40 Please click on the images to view our interactive charts London equity markets rose in early trade on Tuesday, taking their cue from an upbeat session on Wall Street as paper and packaging stocks were lifted by news of a bid for Smurfit Kappa. At 0830 GMT, the FTSE 100 was up 0.8% to 7,175.15, while the pound was down 0.2% against the euro at 1.1207 and 0.1% weaker versus the dollar at 1.3833.  Stocks in the US ended in the black overnight after Paul Ryan and other Republicans voiced their concerns over a possible trade war and urged the White House not to go ahead with President Donald Trump's plans to impose tariffs on imported steel and aluminium. Spreadex analyst Connor Campbell said: "While this signals yet more destabilising discord for the President, investors' primary focus was on the tariff-blocking obstacles created by Ryan and co, and their relief was immediate to see." Back in the UK, investors were digesting the latest data from the British Retail Consortium, which showed like-like-sales volumes were up 0.6% on the year in February, unchanged from the previously month but above the expected 0.4% increase. Meanwhile, year-on-year growth in total sales rose 1.6% from 1.4% in January. Non-food retail sales fell by 1.1% on a like-for-like basis and were down 2.4% in store, while food sales increased 2.8% on a LFL basis. The BRC’s measure of shop price inflation eased to -0.8% in January, from -0.5% in January. Pantheon Macroeconomics said: "Growth in retail sales continued to match last year’s average rate in February, indicating that consumers’ spending is not about to step up and make a bigger contribution to GDP growth." In corporate news, Smurfit Kappa surged after saying it has rejected an “unsolicited and highly opportunistic” takeover approach from International Paper Company of the US. The proposed acquisition would have meant International Paper paying cash and shares for Smurfit Kappa, leaving shareholders of the Dublin-based company with a minority stake in the combined business. Peers Mondi and DS Smith gained ground, with Mondi also boosted by an upgrade to 'outperform' from 'neutral' at Credit Suisse. William Hill edged higher after the bookmaker agreed to dispose of its Australian business for A$300m to CrownBet. Inspection, product testing and certification company Intertekrallied after it posted a jump in full-year pre-tax profit as revenue grew and the company lifted its dividend. Anglo American was in the black as it said sales of rough diamonds at De Beers fell on the month but rose on the year in the second cycle of 2018. EasyJet flew higher as it said passenger numbers rose 4% last month, while the load factor ticked up. to 93% from 92% in February last year. Bodycote rose as it posted a 27% jump in 2017 pre-tax profit, partly thanks to a return to growth in general industrial markets, while brick maker Ibstock racked up strong gains after reporting a drop in full-year profit but a 7% increase in adjusted earnings. On the downside, Just Eat tumbled as it delivered full-year results with extra toppings of revenues above its guidance and profits that exceeded analysts' forecast, but highlighted a rise in costs and competition. Rotork fell as it posted an 11.5% decline in full-year pre-tax profit, while Sirius Minerals retreated following the release of its 2017 results. Retirement housebuilder McCarthy & Stone was in the red as it said it expects first-half revenues of £240m versus full-year expectations of £730m. Office space provider IWG was on the back foot as it posted a 14% drop in full-year pre-tax profit following a weak third-quarter for its mature business in the UK, with London a weak spot, although it struck an upbeat note on the outlook. Temporary power provider Aggreko was firmly lower as it said pre-tax profit for 2017 declined 12% to £195m. In broker note action, Petrofac was upped to 'buy' from 'hold' atJefferies, while Travis Perkins was cut to 'hold' at the same outfit. Lloyds was downgraded to 'neutral' at Exane, while Hastings was cut to 'neutral' at UBS.   Market Movers FTSE 100 (UKX) 7,175.15 0.83% FTSE 250 (MCX) 19,637.20 0.36% techMARK (TASX) 3,341.44 0.61% FTSE 100 - Risers Smurfit Kappa Group (SKG) 3,024.00p 18.96% Smith (DS) (SMDS) 509.60p 6.43% Intertek Group (ITRK) 5,156.00p 5.92% Mondi (MNDI) 2,009.00p 5.40% Tesco (TSCO) 209.40p 2.64% Anglo American (AAL) 1,735.20p 2.48% Barclays (BARC) 211.80p 2.22% Old Mutual (OML) 254.10p 1.97% Scottish Mortgage Inv Trust (SMT) 465.10p 1.77% Johnson Matthey (JMAT) 3,121.00p 1.76% FTSE 100 - Fallers Just Eat (JE.) 755.60p -11.29% Ashtead Group (AHT) 1,995.50p -1.65% International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 609.20p -0.78% Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 251.30p -0.63% Rentokil Initial (RTO) 259.88p -0.43% Barratt Developments (BDEV) 538.00p -0.26% Fresnillo (FRES) 1,205.00p -0.21% Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 5,938.00p -0.13% SSE (SSE) 1,214.50p -0.08% Mediclinic International (MDC) 569.60p -0.07% FTSE 250 - Risers Ibstock (IBST) 279.00p 6.41% Petrofac Ltd. (PFC) 458.37p 3.75% FirstGroup (FGP) 85.75p 3.25% Syncona Limited NPV (SYNC) 202.00p 2.33% Vedanta Resources (VED) 738.10p 2.26% Worldwide Healthcare Trust (WWH) 2,510.00p 2.24% Kaz Minerals (KAZ) 873.82p 2.18% Wood Group (John) (WG.) 621.40p 2.17% AA (AA.) 72.54p 2.00% Sophos Group (SOPH) 499.50p 1.94% FTSE 250 - Fallers Aggreko (AGK) 661.53p -8.63% Purecircle Limited (DI) (PURE) 391.00p -5.56% IWG (IWG) 230.70p -3.96% Rotork (ROR) 275.60p -3.64% McCarthy & Stone (MCS) 133.50p -3.26% Capita (CPI) 152.32p -2.01% Travis Perkins (TPK) 1,281.50p -1.42% Sequoia Economic Infrastructure Income Fund Limited (SEQI)108.50p -1.36% Clarkson (CKN) 3,246.80p -1.31% Hastings Group Holdings (HSTG) 273.00p -1.23% Crypto Pizza Evening with Clem Chambers, CEO of Online Blockchain In May 2010, programmer Laszlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas from Papa Johns for 10,000 bitcoins. Had he kept the coins, as of today they would be worth a cool $86,000,000. Join us on Wednesday 14 March for a crypto pizza 'Bite' on Clem Chambers, the CEO of the first London-listed British blockchain company - Click Here To Register For Free  US close: Wall Street manages green finish as Trump's tweets concern markets Wall Street finished well into the green on Monday, helped by upbeat readings on the country's services sector albeit amid lingering concerns about the potential for increased trade frictions between the US and some of its main trading partners. The Dow Jones Industrial Averagewas ahead 1.37% at 24,874.76 at the closing bell, with the S&P 500following with a 1.1% rise to 2,720.94 and the Nasdaq 100 adding 1.03% to 6,881.28. On Friday, stocks ended the session mixed, amid news that Trump would impose a 25% tariff on steel imports and a 10% tariff on aluminium. Helping to steady sentiment, the ISM's closely-followed services sector purchasing managers' index slipped from a reading of 59.9 for January to 59.5 in February, beating consensus expectations for 59.0. As expected, the separate services sector PMI compiled by IHS Markit rose to 55.9 in February from 53.3 for the month before. On Saturday Donald Trump fanned the flames of the prospect of a trade war with Europe, using his favourite method of information dissemination, Twitter. "If the EU wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on US companies doing business there, we will simply apply a tax on their cars which freely pour into the US,” he wrote. “They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance!” The US president followed that up early on Monday, tweeting that tariffs against Canada and Mexico would only be cancelled if a "new and fair" North American Free Trade deal was signed. “With the US president threatening tariffs on car imports should the EU retaliate, there is a real possibility that a trade war could unfold which doesn't work to anyone's benefit,” noted Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda. “The prospect of this rattled markets on Friday but this didn’t last long and US equities quickly bounced back, with the S&P 500 ending the day half a percentage point higher. “European stocks have been playing catch up at the start of the week, although automakers continue to struggle after Trump's threats.” Market participants also spent the session keeping an eye on Italy, with the Eurosceptic and populist Five Star Movement and the anti-immigrant League both claiming a moral victory at least after voters returned a hung parliament on Sunday. In corporate news, shares in Sparton Corporation took a 27.15% beating after its takeover by London-listed Ultra Electronics was blocked on antitrust grounds. It was a much cheerier picture for Bermuda-based insurer XL Group, however, with shares up a whopping 29.15% after it agreed to be bought by French insurance giant AXA for $15.3bn. Clearside Biomedical rocketed 32.1% after announcing positive top-line results in a late-stage trial of a macular edema treatment. Looking for early access to investment opportunities? Make your own informed investment decisions. Get the right tools and information at Master Investor Show 2018. Register for free today Cryptocurrencies Report Top Cryptocurrencies # Name Market Cap($) Price(%) Change Price Graph(3m) 1 Bitcoin (BTC) 191,291,103,879 11,286.01 -2.1% 2 Ethereum (ETH) 83,066,875,334 847 -0.59% 3 Ripple (XRP) 38,294,207,146 0.9735 +2.79% 4 Bitcoin Cash / BCC (BCH) 21,273,760,586 1,250 -1.09% 5 Litecoin (LTC) 11,493,806,941 207.34 -1.56% 6 Cardano (ADA) 7,800,833,275 0.2975 +0.68% Atlantic Advisory - Share Tips of the Year 2018 Download Our Latest Report Here Losses can exceed deposits Tuesday newspaper round-up: Airlines, trade, TV ads, water companies Philip Hammond has stressed the urgency of securing an implementation deal between Britain and the EU by the end of this month, warning that without it airlines will not know if they can safely schedule flights for spring 2019. The chancellor told a parliamentary committee that it was in the interests of both sides to agree to the terms of the transition period at the March EU council meeting. - Guardian ...he also said no-deal planning must continue until the end of 2020, publicly recognising the scale of the negotiation that would still face the country after Brexit. The chancellor told MPs on the European scrutiny committee that it was likely to be possible to “stand down” preparations for no deal on the date of Brexit once an implementation plan had been agreed with other EU leaders. - The Times Theresa May’s chances of securing a deep free-trade deal with the EU were dealt a blow when Stefaan de Rynck, the main adviser to the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, stressed that the rules of the single market required far more than her chief proposal – a mutual recognition of standards. May claimed in her speech last Friday that the UK could negotiate a future trade relationship based on mutual recognition of standards overseen by a third party court, made up of EU and UK nominees. - Guardian Television broadcasters believe that there will be a pick-up in advertising revenues this year, after a 2017 in which political and economic uncertainty led advertisers to scale back. Their advertising revenue in the UK totalled £5.1 billion in 2017, down 3.2 per cent from the record high in 2016 of £5.28 billion, according to Thinkbox, the marketing body. - The Times MPs are calling on Melrose to voluntarily submit its takeover plan for GKN to the Pensions Regulator for approval to show the security of the retirement scheme will not be harmed by the deal. The call – from the work and pensions select committee – comes ahead of today’s hearing by the business, energy and industrial strategy (BEIS) committee into the impact the £7.4bn hostile takeover could have on UK industry if it is successful. - Telegraph Water companies have “fallen short” on planning for cold weather, the industry regulator said yesterday as thousands of homes across the country were without supplies because of burst water mains and leaks. Ofwat said that the effect on customers had been “deeply distressing” and threatened to intervene if it found that the companies had not had the right structures and mechanisms in place. - The Times Figures revealing rising retail sales offered some succour yesterday to a sector still reeling from a double whammy of administrations last week. Retail sales in the UK were up by 0.6 per cent in February on a like-for-like basis, compared with the same time last year, when they decreased by 0.4 per cent. - The Times Britain is poised to suffer the second largest increase in business failures of any leading global economy this year, a trade credit insurer has warned. Euler Hermes predicted that only China would experience a sharper rise in corporate insolvencies in 2018, as it forecast an 8 per cent increase in British businesses going to the wall. - The Times The world could suffer an oil supply crunch by 2023, raising the risk of price spikes, because investment in exploration remains stubbornly low, experts have warned. Rising oil production from the United States will meet most of growing demand over the next three years, but after that markets could start to get much tighter, according to the International Energy Agency. - The Times Poundland is taking the fight to Primark with plans to open another 91 Pep & Co fashion concessions in its stores over the next four months. Pep & Co, which is owned by Poundland’s scandal-hit South African parent Steinhoff, targets cost-conscious consumers, with £5 jeans and £2 bras making it among the cheapest clothes sellers on the high street. - Telegraph Meals must become smaller, say health chiefs, who believe that “Britain needs to go on a diet”. Companies such as Tesco and McDonald’s have been instructed to cut calories by a fifth in prepared food such as sandwiches, pizzas, sausages, dips, pasta sauces, crisps and soups. - The Times   To advertise in the Euro Markets Bulletin please contact advertise@advfn.com     To unsubscribe from this news bulletin or edit your mailing list settings click here. Registered Office/Accounts Dept: Suite 27, Essex Technology Centre, The Gable, Fyfield Road, Ongar, CM5 0GA. Customer Support +44 (0) 207 0700 961. Company registered in England and Wales: Number 2374988 VAT No. GB 549 2130 49