UK stocks record second straight week of declines
1:37 pm Friday, October 11th, 2024
By Sruthi Shankar and Shubham Batra
(Reuters) -London stocks rounded off the week on a dour note as investors were disappointed after China failed to announce specific measures to stimulate its economy, while losses in Sainsbury’s pulled the benchmark index lower.
The blue-chip FTSE 100 ended 0.2% higher on Friday, but recorded 0.3% declines for the week, while the midcap FTSE 250 fell around 1% for the week.
Industrial metal miners were down 3.5% for the week, weighed by a fall in base metal prices after top consumer China failed to stimulate its ailing economy with specific fiscal measures.
Sainsbury’s dropped 5.9%, the top decliner on the FTSE 100, after the Qatar Investment Authority looked to sell 306 million pounds ($399 million) worth of shares.
British oil major BP slipped 0.3% after it said weak refining margins would dent its third-quarter profit by up to $600 million.
Stocks took little comfort from data that showed Britain’s economy grew in August after two consecutive months of no growth.
Economic output rose by 0.2% in monthly terms in August, in-line with economists’ expectations, and was likely to reassure Finance Minister Rachel Reeves ahead of the new Labour government’s first budget.
“The bottom line is that the economy still seems to be growing at a reasonable pace, but the 0.6/0.7% quarterly GDP readings we became accustomed to in the first two quarters of the year are not going to be repeated in the second half of the year,” James Smith, economist at ING, said.
Among other movers, Jupiter Fund Management slipped 1.8% after it reported lower assets under management with outflows of 1.6 billion pounds in the third quarter.
Saga jumped 9.1% after it said Belgian insurer Ageas is in exclusive talks to set up a 20-year motor and home insurance broking partnership with the British over-50s holiday group.
(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar and Shubham Batra; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala and Ros Russell)
