|
London stocks opened mostly lower on Wednesday, though defence firms rose after Donald Trump struck a more optimistic tone on Ukraine at the UN. The FTSE 100 index opened down 36.45 points, 0.4%, at 9,186.87. The FTSE 250 was down 33.69 points, 0.2%, at 21,661.66, and the AIM All-Share was up 0.45 of a point, 0.1%, at 781.70. The Cboe UK 100 was down 0.5% at 921.10, the Cboe UK 250 was down 0.3% at 18,951.53, and the Cboe Small Companies was marginally lower at 17,501.62. Defence stocks BAE Systems and Babcock International took the top spots on London’s blue chip index at the market open, up 1.9% and 1.7% respectively. Qinetiq rose 2.2% on the FTSE 250. This follows Donald Trump on Tuesday saying that Ukraine could win back all of its territory from Russia, after meeting President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump’s suggestion that Kyiv could win, with financial support from EU and Nato, marks an extraordinary shift after months of saying Ukraine would likely have to cede land to its larger neighbour. Zelensky hailed Trump’s comments as a ‘big shift.’ In a further jibe at Moscow, he also called for Nato countries to shoot down any Russian fighter jets violating their airspace, following a series of incidents that have rattled US allies in Eastern Europe. In European equities on Wednesday, the CAC 40 in Paris shed 0.4%, while the DAX 40 in Frankfurt lost 0.3%. Brent oil was quoted down at $67.83 a barrel early in London on Wednesday from $67.98 late Tuesday. Gold was quoted slightly lower at $3,776.55 an ounce against $3,778.27. ‘Commodities remain the market’s hedge of choice, gold especially. The metal nearly touched $3,700 in late trade before settling above $3,750 amid profit-taking, which grows more sensitive as the rally extends,’ said Pepperstone analyst Ahmad Assiri. ‘Today, gold looks like the hardest market for investors to ignore, combining fundamental backing with speculative flows. The consensus that gold deserves a bigger role in portfolios is giving structural support to its rally, further reinforced by its weak correlation with equities in recent weeks.’ The pound was quoted down at $1.3483 early on Wednesday in London, compared to $1.3509 at the equities close on Tuesday. The euro stood lower at $1.1789, against $1.1792. Against the yen, the dollar was trading up at JP¥148.08 compared to JP¥147.87. Pinewood Technologies was among the FTSE 250’s leading laggers, down 8.9%. The Birmingham-based provider of software to the automotive retailing sector reported no pretax profit for the six months that ended June 30, down from £7.0 million a year earlier. Underlying pretax profit, on the other hand, improved 10% to £4.4 million from £4.0 million. Pinewood said the non-underlying loss comprised a £1.3 million loss from its share of the result from the Pinewood North America LLC joint venture, one-off transaction-related costs of £1.7 million, and share-based payment costs of £1.4 million. Revenue rose 22% to £19.6 million from £16.1 million, driven by increased client spend and the integration of Seez AI. Pinewood is now targeting underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of £58 million to £62 million over the medium-term to financial 2028. First-half Ebitda grew 15% to £7.9 million from £6.9 million. Genedrive fell 57%. The Manchester-based point-of-care pharmacogenetic testing company completed its placing of 1.60 billion shares at 0.20 pence, raising around £3.2 million in total. Proceeds will be used to support the group’s near-term commercialisation and market expansion activities throughout the UK, Europe and the Middle East. At the other end, First Property rose 9.8%. The property fund manager and investor in the UK and Central Europe said it expects to post pretax profit of £3.0 million for the year that ended March 31, which was ‘a significant out performance of the market’s expectations’. The firm anticipates the recovery in profit to be sustained during its current financial year, with two recent property sales in the UK and Romania totalling £4.1 million. The pretax profit from these sales should amount to £1.2 million, First Property said. In Asia on Wednesday, the Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo improved 0.3%. In China, the Shanghai Composite rose 0.8%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong gained 1.3%. The S&P/ASX 200 in Sydney closed down 0.9%. In the US on Tuesday, Wall Street ended lower, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 0.2%, the S&P 500 shedding 0.6% and the Nasdaq Composite losing 1.0%. ChatGPT maker OpenAI, enterprise software maker Oracle and Japanese technology investor SoftBank on Tuesday announced five new artificial intelligence data centre locations in the US under Stargate, OpenAI’s infrastructure platform. The new sites, along with the main campus in Abilene in the US state of Texas, and ongoing projects with CoreWeave, will bring Stargate’s planned capacity to nearly 7 gigawatts and total investment to over $400 billion within three years. According to a statement, this puts the companies ahead of schedule to reach their $500 billion, 10-gigawatt goal by the end of 2025. The yield on the US 10-year Treasury was quoted at 4.11%, narrowing from 4.14%. The yield on the US 30-year Treasury was quoted at 4.72%, trimmed from 4.76%. Still to come on Wednesday’s economic calendar, US new home sales figures. Copyright 2025 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
|
