FTSE 100 live: London down before US payroll data as gold miner’s shares drop
The daily London market update: Market moving news from the FTSE 100 and around the world from City A.M.
London started Friday morning in the red, as gold miner Endeavour’s shares dropped following the shock sacking of its boss last night.
The capital’s premier bluechip index was called to open 39 points lower at 7,684, and by 8.30 in the morning had dropped to 7,680.21, or 0.55 per cent down.
The FTSE 250, which is more aligned with the UK domestic market was at 0.48 per cent down at 19,279.91.
London was in the red ahead of important US payroll data released this afternoon, due out at 1330 GMT.
It will be released along with the unemployment rate and average earnings, with fresh S&P Global/CIPS December construction PMI data out in the UK at 9.30 also.
Elsewhere, house prices continued to show signs of recovery, with the latest Halifax HPI showing a third straight month of growth.
House prices picked up 1.1 per cent on the month following a 0.6 per cent increase in November.
There were disappointing figures for retailers this morning however, with London outlets taking another battering over December.
Footfall fell -1.4 per cent on a year-to-year basis, according to new figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC).
“December’s heavy rain left many shoppers reluctant to brave the elements, who instead opted to browse online before making final purchases, or shop online altogether,” said British Retail Consortium chief executive officer Helen Dickinson.
“This led to a substantial decline in footfall levels compared to December 2022, when there was significant pent-up demand for in-store shopping post-Covid restrictions.”
On the US payroll figures, CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said the “November’s payrolls report saw a decent improvement on the October report, with 199k jobs added, while the unemployment rate slipped to 3.7 per cent.
“With the participation rate returning to 62.8 per cent and wages remaining at four per cent the idea that the Federal Reserve could look at cutting rates as early as March comes across as fanciful in the extreme.
“Weekly jobless claims are also trending in the low 200k’s and just before Christmas US Q3 GDP was confirmed at 5.2 per cent.
“It is true that US jobs growth has been slowing in recent months, with the ADP payrolls report slipping to 101k in November despite yesterday’s rebound to 164k this week, however that is quite normal after such a long economic expansion.
“We’ve also seen improvements in recent manufacturing and services survey data which has shown that economic activity has been holding up reasonably well, and in some cases has been improving.
“For today’s December payrolls report expectations are for 171k jobs to be added and for the unemployment rate to nudge higher to 3.8 per cent.”
Market updates
London woke up to a relatively quiet corporate morning, but was somewhat reeling from bad news last night, after Endeavour Mining announced it had sacked its chief executive.
The boss of the FTSE 100 mining giant was sacked after after the firm uncovered “serious misconduct” following an investigation into an “irregular payment” of $5.9m.
Following the news its shared plummeted by more than 11 per cent at the open.
Shipping services provider Clarkson lifted annual guidance as its shares rose by more than eight per cent after the open.
