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| | London open: Stocks rally as trade war fears wane; Sophos surges |  | | FTSE 100 | Euronext | Dax perf | CAC 40 |  |  |  |  | | Please click on the images to view our interactive charts | | | London stocks racked up healthy gains in early trade on Thursday, underpinned by a solid session on Wall Street as worries about a trade war between the US and China eased. At 0835 BST, the FTSE 100 was up 1.2% to 7,118.31, while the pound was flat against the euro at 1.1461 and down 0.1% versus the dollar at 1.4059. Stocks in the US ended higher on Wednesday despite worries about a trade between the US and China, following reports that President Trump might be a little flexible on one of the North American Free Trade Agreements points. Analysts were also quick to point out that the measures announced by both the US and China are not a done deal, which means there is room for negotiation between the two counties. Jasper Lawler at London Capital Group said: "Investors showed remarkable levels of optimism given the escalation of tension from China regarding the trade war in the previous session. The markets clearly believe right now that China’s tit for tat response will act as a deterrent for Trump, with both parties expected to focus on how to row back with the least friction possible, as time still exists to de-escalate the tensions before tariffs are due to come into force. "However, a reality still exists that Trump could be infuriated with China’s response cornering the hot-headed President to push for broader, deeper tariffs, escalating tensions further. Whilst so far, this doesn’t appear to be the case, given how unpredictable Trump can be, expect the unexpected is fast becoming a suitable mantra." On the data front, Markit's UK services purchasing managers' index for March at 0930 BST is expected to have slipped to 53.9 from 54.5. Market participants will also eye the release of US initial jobless claims at 1330 BST ahead of Friday's non-farm payrolls report. Consensus is for an increase to 225,000 from 215,000. In corporate news, Hammerson rose as it reported modest growth in the value of its portfolio of shopping centres in the first quarter of the year, but said it was waiting for French suitor Klépierre to make its position clear later this month before proceeding with its own takeover of UK rival Intu. Barclays was higher even as Moody's downgraded its rating after the bank split its retail and investment banking activities under rules to make banks safer. The ratings agency also cut its ratings for Royal Bank of Scotland's investment banking operations to reflect their riskier profile when split off from retail banking. Fidessa was in the black after it confirmed the identities of two third parties that are considering making an offer for the financial technology group that trumps the one made by Switzerland's Temenos in February. Ion Investment Group is one of the parties, while SS&C Technologies Inc is the other. HomeServe gained as the home emergency repairs business said its full-year adjusted pre-tax profit should be in line with market expectations following "another strong year". Sophos, a FTSE 250 provider of network cybersecurity solutions, surged after saying expects reported full-year billings growth to be towards the top end of the previously guided range of 20% to 22%. This would represent growth of around 18% at constant currency. Electrocomponents rallied as it said full-year adjusted pre-tax profit would be ahead of market estimates following fourth-quarter revenue growth. On the downside, casino operator Rank Group tumbled after it warned that full-year operating profit would come in between £76m and £78m, down from £83.5m the year before and below consensus expectations of around £83m. Sanne Group was in the red after its employees sold 3.6m shares in the company, which represents a stake of about 2.5%. In broker note action, RBS was upgraded to 'neutral' at MedioBanca, while Segro was lifted to 'buy' at Deutsche Bank. Just Eat was hit by a downgrade to 'underweight' at JPMorgan and 888 was cut to 'hold' at Investec. Direct Line, Aviva, Pearson, St James's Place, Smith & Nephew, Old Mutual, Moneysupermarket, TP Icap, Go-Ahead, Ultra Electronics and IMI were all weaker as their stock went ex-dividend. |
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| | Europe open: Stocks bounce back, trade tensions still very much in focus |  | | FTSE 100 | Euronext | Dax perf | CAC 40 |  | | | | | | Stocks have started the session on a firm footing, tracking gains on Wall Street after multiple top officials from the US administration came out and toned down their rhetoric on international trade. Against that backdrop, as of 0815 BST the benchmark Stoxx 600 was higher by 1.44% or 5.29 points to 372.62, alongside a rise of 1.54% or 184.07 points for the German Dax to 12,140.77 and a gain of 1.51% or 77.46 points to 5,218.85 on the Cac-40. Meanwhile, and from a sector standpoint, some of the best gains were to be seen in: Basic Resources (2.29%) and Autombiles&Parts (1.89%). Speaking on Wednesday evening, the US president himself commented that America was not in a trade War, although he saw little downside from one given the country's outsized shortfall in trade with the rest of the world. "We are not in a trade war with China, that war was lost many years ago by the foolish, or incompetent, people who represented the U.S.," Trump said via his Twitter account. In parallel, the White House's chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, was reportedly stressing how no tariffs had yet been put in place by either side. "Remember, none of the tariffs have been put in place yet. These are all proposals," he said, according to Bloomberg. "We're putting it out for comment. There's at least two months before any actions are taken. China by the way did not enact the tariffs." Nevertheless, Kudlow did not make any reference to whether, when or along what lines negotiations between the two sides might take place. On that note, David Madden at CMC Markets UK said: "Now that China have levelled the playing field in terms of tariffs, the markets will be cautious about a potential retaliation from President Trump – he still feels there is a major trading imbalance between the two counties." Dampening investor sentiment a little perhaps, the first economic data to be published on Thursday were a tad underwhelming, with Germany's Ministry of Finance reporting a much weaker-than-expected reading on the country's factory orders for February. Total factory orders rose by just 0.3% month-on-month (consensus: 1.5%), following a 3.5% drop in January, helped by a 1.4% jump in foreign orders, mainly from other Eurozone countries. Still on the economic calendar for later in the session, IHS Markit was due to release its services and composite purchasing managers' index for March at 0900 BST, with Eurostat was set to publish producer price and retail sales figures for the month of March at 1000 BST. In corporate news, German regulator Bafin's head of banking regulation, Raimund Roeseler, told Handelsblatt that Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, the country's two largest lenders, should not merge or risk creating an institution that was 'too big to fail'. Further South, Air France's unions called strikes for 17,18,23 and 24 April after management rebuffed their requests for higher wages. Also in the spotlight, Accor announced the acquisition of a 50% stake in South Africa's Mantis Group. |
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| | US close: Wall Street charges higher after knee-jerk tumble | | Wall Street stocks continued to be dragged around like a rag doll on Wednesday, dumped at the open amid talk of trade tensions before charging higher as the session wore on to finish on an upbeat note struck by strong jobs numbers. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was entirely bathed in red after the opening bell, falling 2%, but eventually added 1% over the day to close at 24,264.30. Similarly the Nasdaq and S&P 500 rebounded from near-1.5% declines to finish 1.5% and and 1.2% higher at 7,042.11 and 2,644.69 respectively. The dollar fell 0.2% against the pound and retraced early losses against the euro to end roughly flat, while US Treasuries bear-steepened with a three basis point increase in long-end yields. Before the opening bell, trade war tensions were brought to a simmer as China unveiled a tit-for-tat list of measures against around $50bn of US imports. Beijing announced it would apply a fresh round of tariffs on 106 US goods including soybeans, cars, aircraft and chemicals, just hours after President Trump's administration published a list of around $50bn on 1,333 Chinese goods spanning electronics, aerospace and machinery products, which it said would be slapped with a 25% tariff. Beijing said it "strongly condemns and firmly opposes" the proposed US tariffs, which it said were "unrealistic and protectionist". Meanwhile, in other trade talks, reports that White House demands were softening on rules of origin in the NAFTA negotiations lent support, said analysts at TD Securities, to reports that suggest an agreement in principle is possible by next week. On China, David Cheetham, chief market analyst at XTB, noted that the tariffs are not set to be implemented any time soon and that, looking at historical precedents for tariffs, the 25% level remains relatively small compared to the 100% or higher that President Reagan and other administrations imposed on Japanese products in the 1980s and 1990s. Analyst Neil Wilson at ETX Capital said Wall Street had got into the habit of making kneejerk reactions. "The market seems to be taking on a split personality; down heavily one day only to rally firmly the next as investors seem intent on overreacting to bad news and good news in equal measure. The volatility means the VIX is back up above 23 but still some way off the levels seen in Feb and, in what is a potential signal of bullish divergence, is making lower highs." He said Wednesday's initial overreaction "reflects undefined fears rather than careful assessment of the economic impact of tariffs, or the likelihood that they will stick", with investors selling stocks and buying bonds that suddenly look a lot more attractive given the yields. Shares in Boeing, whose main end market is China, were sharply lower as well, erasing 5% in early trading but paring four fifths of that by the close. Likewise, Tesla skidded 5% lower after analysts dissected its first-quarter production and delivery numbers but gained 7% by the chequered flag. Going the other way, music-streaming debutant Spotify's second day as a listed company saw the stock give up some of its first-day gains, falling 2% to $145.87. Elsewhere, home builder Lennar rose 6.93% following a better-than-expected earnings report, while used-car seller CarMax nudged forward after releasing its own results. On the data front, ahead of Friday's non-farm payrolls, ADP estimated that the American private sector added 241,000 new jobs in March, following the 246,000 in February - beating estimates for 205,000. The ISM non-manufacturing index dipped to 58.8 in March from 59.5, remaining close to its 13-year high, although there was a drop in new orders. Overall economists said the index suggested that the apparent slowdown in GDP growth in the first quarter will not be sustained. Meanwhile, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said, in a speech in Little Rock, Arkansas, the US central bank need not raise interest rates much more given how close it is to the neutral rate. "It is not necessary in this circumstance to raise the policy rate further in order to put downward pressure on inflation, since inflation is already below target," Bullard said. |
| | Thursday newspaper round-up: Facebook, Apple, Shell, trade war | | More than a million Facebook users in Britain could have had their personal data accessed by Cambridge Analytica, the company revealed on Wednesday, as it increased its estimates of the total number of users affected from 50 to 87 million. Mark Zuckerberg, the embattled chief executive of the social media giant, refused to rule out legal action against the British company and insisted that he remained the best man to lead the tech firm, flatly denying he had been asked to resign. – Guardian Apple has poached Google's AI chief, John Giannandrea, to run its machine learning and AI operations, in the clearest sign yet that the iPhone creator is attempting to fix the problems that saw its early lead in the field crumble. Scottish-born Giannandrea, who joined Google in 2010 after his startup, Metaweb, was acquired, has led the search firm's push to become market leader in AI and machine learning. Under his command, Google Brain, the company's main AI research team, has rebuilt the technology that underpins some of Google's landmark products, including search, translation and voice recognition. - Guardian Royal Dutch Shell faces the threat of legal action from environmental campaigners who want to force the oil and gas group to switch to greener energy. Friends of the Earth said that it planned to take the Anglo-Dutch energy company to court in the Netherlands, where it has its headquarters, unless it stopped exploring for fossil fuels in the next eight weeks. – The Times A trade war between the world's biggest economies is likely to be averted because countries will recognise the importance of economic integration, Barclays' chief executive has claimed. Jes Staley said he hoped that the United States, China and other countries would stop short of putting up permanent trade barriers because trade was "one of the anchors of political stability" and such a move would be "a reversal of a global economic policy which has served the world very well since World War Two". – The Times The new management at HSBC is considering further slimming down the lender that once billed itself as the "world's local bank", as it emerged that a former employee of its Swiss private bank, whistleblower Herve Falciani, has been arrested in Spain. John Flint, who succeeded Stuart Gulliver as chief executive in February, is reviewing up to a quarter of the remaining 67 countries the bank operates in, according to a Bloomberg report. Country units thought to be on the block include Bermuda, Malta and Uruguay. – The Telegraph | | | | To advertise in the Euro Markets Bulletin please contact advertise@advfn.com |
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