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Blue chip indices in London, Paris and Frankfurt were lower at Monday midday, with London’s fall the softest, as Eurostat unexpectedly posted a fall in the eurozone’s goods trade surplus for June, while economists globally warned on persistently high inflation. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is meeting US President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday, as are several other European leaders, including UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who reportedly hope to protect Ukraine from having to submit to Russian land grabs as part of a peace deal. Meanwhile, economists anticipate persistently high price inflation around the world over the next three years due to trade conflicts and import tariffs, survey findings published by the ifo institute showed. The economists surveyed expect a global average figure of 4.0% for 2025, of 3.9% for 2026, and 3.7% for 2028. There are regional differences however, with Western European inflation expected at 1.8% in 2025, falling below the European Central Bank’s 2% target, while inflation will be significantly higher in Eastern Europe at 7.6%, and in Asia, with Central Asian price rises being the largest at 11.3%. The FTSE 100 index was down 7.14 points, 0.1%, at 9,131.76. The FTSE 250 was down 24.73 points, 0.1%, at 21,733.51, and the AIM All-Share was up 1.22 points, 0.2%, at 761.79. The Cboe UK 100 was down 0.1% at 915.33, the Cboe UK 250 was marginally higher at 19,131.73, and the Cboe Small Companies was down 0.1% at 17,055.60. ‘It felt instructive [in light of the talks on Ukraine] that defensive stocks were to the fore in London as gold miners, defence companies and utilities did the heavy lifting,’ noted AJ Bell’s Russ Mould. Defence firm Babcock International led the FTSE 100 near midday, up 4.2%. Gold miner Endeavour followed, up 3.1%, while another defence stock, BAE Systems, gained 1.7%. In utilities, Severn Trent gained 0.4% while National Grid gained 0.6%. Land Securities was 0.6% lower. The commercial property developer and investor has sold its Queen Anne’s Mansions office block in Victoria, London, to Arora for £245 million cash, a deal which is ‘immediately accretive’ to return on equity. ‘Getting the best part of a quarter of a billion pounds for an asset you don’t really want has to be chalked up as a win for Land Securities,’ Mould commented. ‘Queen Anne’s Mansions would have needed significant refurbishment...but now that is a problem for the new owner, billionaire hotel tycoon Surinder Arora. ‘This deal also represents a meaningful step along the road to [Land Securities’] target of raising £2 billion from its portfolio of office assets to recycle into more profitable parts of the business.’ HICL Infrastructure gained 0.3%. The London-based closed-ended infrastructure investor announced a sale of seven assets for £225 million to Dutch pension services provider APG. Also, it reported a solid half-year operational performance and said it remains on track to deliver its covered target dividend of 8.35 pence for the year ending March 31, 2026. TBC Bank was down 1.4%, although it was 2.2% higher near the open. The Tbilisi-based lender has started a share buyback worth up to ₾75 million, about £20 million. Wishbone Gold’s stock price more than doubled. The Western Australia-focused miner said drilling at its Red Setter Gold Dome project in WA has intersected ‘a significant breccia pipe’ in the first hole. ‘It is outstanding to see the emergence of this mineralised breccia pipe and see the intensity of brecciation and the amount of quartz-carbonate veining and sulphides,’ WA Director Ed Mead commented. ‘This is a fantastic outcome as brecciation typifies a style of gold and copper mineralisation seen at both the nearby Telfer and Havieron deposits.’ In European equities on Monday, the CAC 40 in Paris was down 0.8%, while the DAX 40 in Frankfurt was down 0.4%. The eurozone goods trade surplus unexpectedly narrowed in June, amid a stark fall in the surplus in chemicals, data published by Eurostat showed. The goods surplus shrank by 58% to €7.0 billion in June from €16.5 billion in May, which was upwardly revised from €16.2 billion. This sharply underperformed against FXStreet-cited market expectations of an increase in the goods surplus to €17.5 billion in June. The sharp decline was mostly driven by a fall in the surplus of chemicals and related products, down 38% to €15.1 billion in June from €24.4 billion in May. Notably, the eurozone’s trade surplus with the US fell 48% to €9.6 billion in June from 18.4 billion in May. The pound was quoted lower at $1.3544 at midday on Monday in London, compared to $1.3566 at the equities close on Friday. The euro stood at $1.1682, lower against $1.1712. Against the yen, the dollar was trading higher at JP¥147.42 compared to JP¥146.90. Stocks in New York were called lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was called down 0.1%, the S&P 500 index down 0.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite down 0.1%. The yield on the US 10-year Treasury was quoted at 4.30%, narrowing from 4.31%. The yield on the US 30-year Treasury was quoted unchanged at 4.90%. ‘Later this week attention will turn to the Jackson Hole symposium in Wyoming, where Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell may offer some clues on the future direction of interest rates,’ Mould said. Brent oil was quoted lower at $66.00 a barrel at midday in London on Monday from $66.33 late Friday. Gold was quoted higher at $3,348.64 an ounce against $3,343.39. ‘Oil prices waxed and waned as the US did not follow through on threats to introduce fresh sanctions on Moscow, including secondary tariffs on countries which import Russian oil, but subsequently ticked higher amid the ongoing uncertainty,’ Mould recounted. ‘Gold, notably, was firmer.’ Still to come on Monday’s economic calendar, Canada reports housing starts data. Copyright 2025 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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