Despite slowing growth across the board, the FTSE still managed to cross 6000 for the first time since mid-September.
August’s GDP reading came in at 2.1% month-on-month, under half of the 4.6% forecast and less than a third of July’s (downwards revised) 6.4%. This meant that the month’s ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme did little in the grand scheme of things – bar to perhaps help accelerate the spread of the virus.
There were other worrying figures elsewhere. Industrial production dropped from 5.2% to just 0.3% month-on-month, plunging past the expected 2.6%. The same happened with the manufacturing reading, which sank from 6.9% to 0.7%. Construction output, meanwhile, collapsed, from 17.2% to 3.0%.
Yet this didn’t stop the FTSE from eking out a 0.3% rise, allowing it to just about stick its nose across the 6000 line.
Over in the Eurozone the DAX was unchanged at 13,050, but with the CAC up 0.3% despite its own industrial production miss.
As for the Dow Jones , it is aiming to hit 28,500 – a fresh 5-week peak – with a 100 point climb after the bell. The US index is still hopeful that a relief package can get signed off, with Nancy Pelosi and Steven Mnuchin continuing to talk amid mixed signals from the White House. The President – via his Treasury Secretary – is seeking a new airline bailout, while the Speaker of the House has rules out an airlines-only package without wider stimulus.
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