London open: Higher start for stocks after 'constructive' US-China trade talks
Stocks have started the morning slightly higher on the back of news of "constructive" contacts between top US and Chinese trade negotiators at the weekend, although some analysts reacted cautiously to the headlines.
Marshall Gittler at ACLS Global described the latest news around the ongoing trade talks as "vague", while Craig Erlam at Oanda pointed out that while "arguably a positive, we were meant to be at the point of agreeing a date and location for it to be signed off."
"This could well go on beyond the end of the year and even fall apart altogether which could be troublesome for the markets which have already invested so heavily into it," Erlam added.
Be that as it may, and helped by the fresh record highs reached by Wall Street's main stockmarket gauges on Friday, as of 0816 GMT the Footsie was up by 0.11% at 7,304.93.
In parallel, the second tier index was adding 0.35% to 20,475.78.
According to China's ministry of commerce, at Washington's request, on Saturday Chinese vice premier, Liu He, spoke with US Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, and America's Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer.
The commerce ministry said the two sides had "constructive discussions".
Back on home turf, according to property website Rightmove, prices for new properties coming to market in the UK dropped by 1.3% or £3,904 versus October, as the number of new sellers shrank by 14.9% in comparison to a year ago, with the latter marking the largest decline seen since August 2009.
No major economic releases were scheduled in the UK, US or euro area on Monday.
Among some of the broker recommendations that were moving the market in early trading, analysts at Jefferies upgraded their view on shares of HSBC from 'hold' to 'buy' while hiking their target price on its stock from 691.0p to 790.0p.
Diploma reported 15% growth in annual profit before tax to £83.5m after revenue climbed by 12% to £544.7m on the back of a good performance from the FTSE 250-listed company's healthcare businesses. The technical products and services specialist said that, though the political and economic outlook remains uncertain, it remained on track for another strong performance in the year ahead due to its resilient business model.
Technology group Sage said it had agreed to sell its Sage Pay business to US Bancorp's payments unit Elavon for £232.0m. It said it expected to report a statutory profit of around £180.0m on completion, which would close in the second quarter of the 2020 fiscal year.
TI Fluid Systems announced on Monday that Ronald Hundzinski would be its new chief financial officer, effective 6 January. The FTSE 250 company said he was joining from Tenneco, where he was currently executive vice-president of finance. During the prior 35 years, he had held a number of leadership positions in finance at Emerson Electric, GKN, Meridian Automotive and BorgWarner, and served as chief financial officer and executive vice-president of BorgWarner from 2012 until 2018.
Market Movers
FTSE 100 (UKX) 7,305.21 0.03%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 20,429.68 0.12%
techMARK (TASX) 4,000.89 0.32%
FTSE 100 - Risers
NMC Health (NMC) 2,432.00p 2.70%
Next (NXT) 6,736.00p 1.45%
Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 1,763.00p 1.38%
Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 4,595.00p 1.12%
St James's Place (STJ) 1,073.50p 1.08%
Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 173.40p 1.05%
Barratt Developments (BDEV) 658.60p 1.04%
British Land Company (BLND) 561.80p 1.04%
Hiscox Limited (DI) (HSX) 1,261.00p 0.96%
Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 59.69p 0.88%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
Fresnillo (FRES) 615.60p -1.41%
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 726.20p -0.95%
Unilever (ULVR) 4,528.50p -0.86%
Pearson (PSON) 672.80p -0.83%
British American Tobacco (BATS) 2,829.50p -0.79%
Experian (EXPN) 2,419.00p -0.78%
BT Group (BT.A) 191.60p -0.73%
Compass Group (CPG) 1,998.50p -0.57%
Informa (INF) 789.00p -0.50%
Ashtead Group (AHT) 2,374.00p -0.50%
FTSE 250 - Risers
AJ Bell (AJB) 409.50p 2.89%
TalkTalk Telecom Group (TALK) 107.60p 1.89%
Telecom Plus (TEP) 1,302.00p 1.88%
Riverstone Energy Limited (RSE) 442.00p 1.84%
Plus500 Ltd (DI) (PLUS) 762.40p 1.82%
Tullow Oil (TLW) 150.70p 1.76%
Future (FUTR) 1,518.00p 1.74%
Virgin Money UK (VMUK) 143.30p 1.67%
Sports Direct International (SPD) 326.60p 1.55%
Dixons Carphone (DC.) 121.75p 1.46%
FTSE 250 - Fallers
PayPoint (PAY) 890.00p -4.61%
Stagecoach Group (SGC) 131.20p -2.38%
Vivo Energy (VVO) 120.20p -2.28%
Sirius Real Estate Ltd. (SRE) 73.30p -2.14%
Syncona Limited NPV (SYNC) 219.50p -2.01%
Clarkson (CKN) 2,715.00p -1.99%
PureTech Health (PRTC) 215.00p -1.83%
Computacenter (CCC) 1,402.00p -1.68%
FDM Group (Holdings) (FDM) 780.00p -1.64%
Polypipe Group (PLP) 469.00p -1.64%