Market overview: Miners lead gains after PBoC rate cut
1630:Close Mining stocks were firmly higher after the PBoC surprised markets with a rate cut. That was backed up by very dovish remarks from ECB president Mario Draghi. Tullow Oil also bounced back alongside a similar move in oil futures ahead of OPEC’s summit next week. Travel stocks were on the negative side of the ledger, together with RBS after the lender revealed that it has made an error in its stress-test calculations. FSTE 100 up 72 to 6,751.
Anglo American
2,179.00p
16:35 19/04/24
Carnival
1,027.50p
16:35 19/04/24
Fresnillo
602.00p
16:43 19/04/24
FTSE 100
7,895.85
16:59 19/04/24
NATWEST GROUP
276.70p
16:34 19/04/24
TalkTalk Telecom Group
96.90p
16:34 11/03/21
Tullow Oil
35.88p
16:45 19/04/24
Vodafone Group
67.00p
16:40 19/04/24
1621: RBS made an error in its stress-test calculation.
1521: TalkTalk Group would like to lease out its fixed-line network to bigger wireless rival Vodafone, the company’s chief executive was quoted as saying on Friday.
1421: In a research note e-mailed to clients Barclays Research says that while it still sees the Fed raising rates in June it now sees the risks as tilted towards September, rather than March.
1240: The results of yesterday's by-election show that three major UK parties have become individually unelectable. Hence, from May 2015 onwards the UK faces a further period of coalition or minority government. That reduces the prospects for structural reform, deficit reduction and political stability and thus for medium-term economic growth, Panmure Gordon writes in a research note. That also translates into a lower outlook for sterling.
1203: Miners are clearly at the top of the leaderboard right now and for an obvious reason, the decision by China's central bank to cut interest rates. Capital Economics is calling it a "major - and largely unanticipated - change of tack". However, due to some of the peculiarities of the Chinese financial system the impact on the economy from today's move will be limited. For starters, it will only help larger firms' funding costs, not even the amount of supply extended to them - unless caps on loan volumes are increased.
1101: Morgan Stanley ups Carnival Corp. price target to £28 from £25. The same broker has reiterated its 'overweight' stance on Fresnillo.
1044: China has cut its benchmark interest rate to boost the economy. The People's Bank of China cut the one-year deposit rate by 25 basis points to 2.75% and the one-year lending rate by 40 basis points to 5.6%.
0930: The UK's public sector net borrowing was £7.7bn in October, down £200m against the same month a year ago, according to official figures.
0900: The FTSE 100 and European stocks opened the on a positive note after reports that China’s central bank has injected funds. The central bank supplied funds on a short-term basis to the banking system due to a cash shortage stemming from new share sales, sources told Bloomberg. The People’s Bank of China said it will provide liquidity support through multiple monetary policy tools when necessary.
European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi also said that the central bank was ready to expand its asset purchase programmes if inflation remains too low for too long. “We will continue to meet our responsibility—we will do what we must to raise inflation and inflation expectations as fast as possible, as our price stability mandate requires of us,” Draghi said in a speech to a banking conference in Frankfurt.