FTSE 100 movers: Housebuilders slump; dollar-earners rise
London’s FTSE 100 was flat at 5,787.21 in afternoon trade on Monday.
Barratt Developments, Taylor Wimpey and Persimmon all fell as Rightmove said in its latest survey that the coronavirus lockdown meant statistics on the number of properties coming to market, new seller asking prices, and new sales agreed were "not meaningful".
Rightmove said the average asking price of the "daily dwindling number of properties coming to market" in the period from 8 March to 11 April slipped 0.2% to £311,950, with the annual rate of increase from last April being 2.1%.
Rightmove said new sales were now "almost impossible". "You do not have a functioning market when buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell, and so the focus needs to be on what is required to help the market recover once the lockdown can safely be eased," it said.
Standard Chartered was in the red. HSBC noted the shares are down around 44% year-to-date, trading close to 20-year lows on price-to-book multiples at 0.36x.
"It has a stronger balance sheet than five years ago and its core Greater China and North Asia footprint is economically resilient," HSBC said, adding that StanChart should be able to pay a FY20 dividend per share and restart buybacks in 1H 2021.
Travel-related stocks IAG, easyJet and Carnival were on the back foot amid ongoing concerns about the Covid-19 impact.
On the upside, dollar-earners Unilever, Ashtead and Reckitt were all higher as sterling fell versus the greenback, trading down 0.5% at $1.2438.
FTSE 100 - Risers
Unilever (ULVR) 4,239.00p 3.01%
Next (NXT) 4,553.00p 2.66%
Rentokil Initial (RTO) 446.20p 2.48%
Ashtead Group (AHT) 1,806.00p 2.21%
Pennon Group (PNN) 1,109.50p 2.07%
Auto Trader Group (AUTO) 447.40p 1.98%
Reckitt Benckiser Group (RB.) 6,368.00p 1.92%
Ocado Group (OCDO) 1,598.50p 1.88%
Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 1,561.00p 1.86%
Intermediate Capital Group (ICP) 975.00p 1.35%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
Meggitt (MGGT) 256.10p -7.11%
Barratt Developments (BDEV) 460.30p -5.23%
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 221.30p -5.18%
easyJet (EZJ) 607.00p -4.98%
ITV (ITV) 67.86p -4.72%
Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 130.35p -4.40%
Carnival (CCL) 874.00p -4.17%
Anglo American (AAL) 1,365.40p -4.01%
Persimmon (PSN) 1,922.00p -3.80%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 394.20p -3.03%