London’s FTSE 100 rose on Monday, on the back of trading platform CMC Markets announcing cost-cutting plans, while Lloyds fell after it reportedly helped Iran-backed oil firms evade UK sanctions. Elsewhere, Vodafone fell on mixed third-quarter results.
The bluechip index rose 0.40 per cent to 7,645.77, while the FTSE 250, which is more aligned with the health of the UK economy, ticked up 0.23 per cent to 19,216.48.
Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggest that the unemployment rate has been falling over the past few months, in a sign of the continued tightness of the UK’s labour market.
The figures are not part of the ONS’s revamped survey, but should be more accurate than figures published in the second half of last year which did not reflect the latest estimates of the UK’s population.
Previous “experimental” estimates, which used up-to-date administrative data, put the unemployment rate in the three months to November at 4.2 per cent.
Coming just a week after the Bank opened the door to interest rate cuts later this year, analysts argued that the data would likely lead the Bank to hold on longer before cutting interest rates.
The chair of the US Federal Reserve Jerome Powell said on Sunday that he still expected to make three 0.25 per cent interest rate reductions this year, despite markets betting on six cuts. The Fed pencilled in these cuts in December.
Powell said that “nothing has happened in the meantime that would lead me to think that people would dramatically change their forecasts”.
“The FTSE 100 has climbed at the start of the week with consumer discretionary and real estate companies boosted by hopes of interest rate cuts on the horizon this year,” said Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown.
“Investors have shrugged off the geopolitical worries about fresh attacks on targets in the Middle East by the US-led coalition, with hopes still high that a truce is in sight.”
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Unemployment lower than previously thought according to ONS following revamp of data collection
Telecoms giant Vodafone has said its total revenue shrank by over two per cent in the third quarter due to contractions in Italy and Spain and sluggish growth in Germany, its biggest market.
The firm reported a 2.3 per cent drop in revenue to €11.37bn (£9.7bn) over the third quarter, down from €11.63bn (£39.9bn) in the same period last year. Shares fell 1.2 per cent.
CMC Markets, founded by Tory peer Lord Peter Cruddas, has stuck to the upgraded guidance it issued at the end of last month but has announced plans to cut more than 200 jobs in a bid to save £21m. Shares jumped more than 13 per cent.
Lloyds and Santander have provided bank accounts to holding companies linked to a state-backed Iranian petrochemicals company which has been under western sanctions since 2018, according to the Financial Times. Lloyds shares dropped 1.2 per cent, while Santander fell 3.4 per cent.
The founder and former chief of Revolution Beauty will have to pay close to £3m to the scandal-stricken makeup brand to settle allegations he breached fiduciary duties to the company. Shares slumped 2.9 per cent.
Commercial property firm Land Securities, utility company National Grid and pharmaceutical giant GSK rose on the back of broker upgrades.
Loss-making Naked Wines has named its new chief executive four months after its former boss Nick Devlin stepped down amid a challenging period for the company.