The UK markets opened strong on Thursday morning, though it was still a relatively quiet start to the session.
Adding another 0.3%, the FTSE founds its way back to the pre-pandemic levels struck at the tail end of last week.
The FTSE 250 was even better, climbing half a percent to 22,450 – that’s around 20 points off last Thursday’s closing record, and 140 points short of yesterday’s intraday peak.
Following its disastrous debut a couple of weeks ago, Deliveroo (LON:ROO) delivered its first figures as a tradable entity on Thursday. And they were good, with a 114% increase in Q1 orders year-on-year to 71 million, and a 130% surge in the gross transaction value (GTV) to £1.65 billion.
However, with lockdown easing, the company is set to enter a period of deceleration in growth, warning that for the year GTV is expected to climb between 30% and 40% – between a quarter and a third of what it managed in Q1.
It is unclear just how severe the drop off in demand will be when things go back to ‘normal’. Much like the working from home versus office debate, only time will tell to what extent regularly ordering from Deliveroo (and, indeed, its rivals) has become a more deeply entrenched part of British food culture.
And that uncertainty is a turn off for investors, sending the stock more than 1% lower after the bell.
Elsewhere the Eurozone indices weren’t quite as lively. The DAX approached 15,250 as it rose 0.2%, but with the IBEX up just 0.1%, and the CAC unchanged at 6,215.
As for the US open, after missing out on a closing all-time high last night, the Dow Jones is set to be back in the hunt this Thursday. Currently the futures have the index heading for a 0.4%, 120-point, rise, pushing it above 33,860.
However, between now and then sit the retail sales readings for March. Luckily for the US, things are looking up. The standard figure is set to rebound from -3.0% to 5.8%, with the core number seeing a similar improvement, from -2.7% to 5.1%.
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