With the US-China relationship appearing to deteriorate further – on Saturday Beijing called off planned trade talks with Washington – the European indices couldn’t shake their low-key negativity on Monday.
Despite the OPEC-Trump spat – the US President has his grubby finger in a lot of different geopolitical pies – sending Brent Crude up 2.4% to hit an $80.50 per barrel-plus 4 year high, the FTSE couldn’t help but drift 15 or so points lower as the day went on. Contributing to that decline were the index’s mining stocks which, unlike BP (LON:BP) and Shell (LON:RDSa), were not in a good mood, with the trade tensions keeping the sector’s big players in the red.
Sterling’s mild rebound likely also kept the FTSE the wrong side of 7500 this Monday. Following last Friday’s Brexit-induced nightmare, the pound managed to climb 0.4% against the dollar, clambering back above $1.313, and 0.2% against the euro, where it has snuck across €1.115, after Dominic Raab made some positive noise above the chances of avoiding a no deal divorce.
Turning to this afternoon and following last week’s record-breaking antics the Dow Jones currently looks set to calm down, with the futures suggesting the US index will dip 40 points when the bell rings on Wall Street. That would leave the Dow a smidge under 26700, but still around 700 points higher than where it started the month.
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