London midday: Weaker US dollar weighs on share prices

Stocks were holding lower come midday on the last full trading session of 2019, weighed down by weakeness in the US dollar.

MUFG Bank analyst, Lee Hardman, linked the weaker Greenback to remarks by Beijing's ambassador to the US, Cui Tiankai, who on Saturday said that his country would honour its commitments under the phase one trade deal agreed with Washington, even as he criticised talk of a new 'Cold War' between the US and China.

To take note of as well, in remarks to the Irish Times, European Union Trade Commissioner, Phil Hogan, predicted that the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, would in the end go for an extension of the 31 December 2020 deadline for the UK's transition period for exiting the bloc.

"I don't believe Prime Minister Johnson will die in the ditch over the timeline for the future relationship either," he said.

As of 1203 GMT, the FTSE 100 was falling by 28.33 points to 7,616.56 as the pound added 0.44% against the US dollar to reach 1.3134.

Meanwhile, the FTSE 250 was down by 32.01 points at 22,026.99, with sterling trading up by 0.15% versus the euro at 1.1724.

Nonetheless, trading volumes in shares were expected to be extraordinarily thin throughout the entire week on account of the New Year holiday, with many traders expected to remain away from their desks.

Making just that point, Marshall Gittler at ACLS Global told clients: "Occasionally [the first trading week of the year] are the most volatile weeks of the year, probably because the market is so thin. As long as nothing untoward or unexpected happens, you’re probably safe spending your time a) partying and b) recovering from partying, but you might want to cover any open positions just in case."

No major economic reports were scheduled for release in the UK on Monday. However, on the other side of the Atlantic, investors were waiting on readings for foreign trade in November at 1330 GMT, MNI's regional Chicago Purchasing Managers' Index for December at 1445 GMT and the NAHB's Pending Home Sales index at 1500 GMT.

Also at the weekend, US national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, reportedly said that North Korea may have reconsidered its threatened 'Christmas gift' to the US, which some observers believed would take the form of a long-range missile test before the end of the year.

In other geopolitical news, overnight pro-Russian separatists and Ukraine carried out a swap of 200 prisoners.

Investors brush off reports of short-selling in Future

Shares of publishing group Future were edging higher even after a report in The Times that American hedge fund, Coltrane Asset Management, had taken out a £17.0m in one of London's stock market darlings.

Rio Tinto has started the process of resuming operations at Richards Bay Minerals (RBM) in South Africawhich, it announced on Monday. The move followed discussions led by the Premier of the province of KwaZulu-Natal, Sihle Zikalala, involving all stakeholders, which were focussed on “securing stability” in order to address the issues in the community, and provide a stable environment for RBM to resume operations.

AstraZeneca announced alongside MSD on Monday that Lynparza, or ‘olaparib’, has been approved in the United States for the maintenance treatment of adult patients with deleterious or suspected deleterious germline BRCA-mutated metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma, or pancreatic cancer, whose disease had not progressed on at least 16 weeks of a first-line platinum-based chemotherapy regimen.

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 7,613.14 -0.42%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 22,026.98 -0.15%
techMARK (TASX) 4,206.27 -0.54%

FTSE 100 - Risers

NMC Health (NMC) 1,789.50p 3.08%
Just Eat (JE.) 839.80p 1.23%
Persimmon (PSN) 2,682.00p 1.21%
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) 5,259.00p 0.75%
Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 1,975.00p 0.36%
Whitbread (WTB) 4,908.00p 0.31%
Auto Trader Group (AUTO) 609.20p 0.26%
Admiral Group (ADM) 2,323.00p 0.26%
easyJet (EZJ) 1,423.00p 0.18%
Prudential (PRU) 1,443.00p 0.17%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Next (NXT) 7,116.00p -2.12%
Vodafone Group (VOD) 148.72p -1.51%
Pearson (PSON) 646.20p -1.34%
BAE Systems (BA.) 572.20p -1.28%
Johnson Matthey (JMAT) 3,051.00p -1.10%
Rio Tinto (RIO) 4,499.50p -1.08%
BHP Group (BHP) 1,791.40p -1.07%
Centrica (CNA) 89.66p -1.04%
Ashtead Group (AHT) 2,421.00p -1.02%
Ocado Group (OCDO) 1,273.00p -0.97%

FTSE 250 - Risers

PureTech Health (PRTC) 335.00p 10.20%
Contour Global (GLO) 214.00p 4.14%
Hochschild Mining (HOC) 173.90p 2.78%
Bakkavor Group (BAKK) 143.60p 2.57%
Restaurant Group (RTN) 163.60p 2.06%
Finablr (FIN) 175.50p 2.03%
Wood Group (John) (WG.) 402.10p 1.93%
Centamin (DI) (CEY) 119.65p 1.92%
Fresnillo (FRES) 631.80p 1.90%
Avast (AVST) 472.60p 1.59%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

CLS Holdings (CLI) 299.50p -3.54%
Helios Towers (HTWS) 150.00p -2.34%
Frasers Group (FRAS) 459.00p -2.17%
Spirent Communications (SPT) 244.00p -2.01%
NewRiver REIT (NRR) 201.50p -1.95%
Cairn Energy (CNE) 201.20p -1.76%
IntegraFin Holding (IHP) 452.00p -1.74%
Dixons Carphone (DC.) 144.50p -1.70%
Diploma (DPLM) 2,050.00p -1.63%
Playtech (PTEC) 396.00p -1.57%