After a disappointing second half of February – a month that had been looking so good at the midpoint – the FTSE’s March got off to a tentative start, the index once again dancing around 7100.
A lot was working in the FTSE’s favour on Friday. Its miners – well, not those with a heavy interest in gold – were on the rebound after yesterday’s losses, while sterling pulled back another 0.2% against the dollar to sit the wrong side of $1.325. It also had the bonus of a 7% surge from WPP (LON:WPP), the advertising agency rising despite a set of results full of plunging profits and warnings about 2019 (it did, however, maintain a 60p per share dividend and post a slightly better than forecast drop in like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs).
However, there just wasn’t the appetite to significantly push the index above 7100; instead it added just 20 points, investors perhaps holding off for the day’s data before doing anything of note. The latest UK manufacturing PMI is set to slip even further, from 52.8 to a 4 month low of 52.0, while net lending to individuals is set to dip from £4.8 billion to £4.7 billion.
Things were far more positive in the Eurozone. A huge swing in German retail sales – which went from -3.1% to +3.3% month-on-month – seems to have put the region in a good mood ahead of Friday’s manufacturing and inflation data. The DAX hit a near 4 month peak of 11600 as it rose 0.8%, with the CAC above 5270 after climbing half a percent.
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