There was plenty to be tentative about this Friday morning, including the latest threats from Kim Jong-un, Theresa May’s Brexit speech in Florence and the weekend’s German election.
The FTSE fell 0.2% after the bell, returning to 7250 having tried, and failed, to break back through 7300 earlier in the week. It’s lucky – its initial decline could have been far worse given that its mining and banking stocks are all in the red. The pound, meanwhile, pushed 0.1% higher against the dollar having risen back above $1.355 yesterday evening, but was less successful against the euro, where it slipped 0.3% ahead of the Eurozone’s flash manufacturing and services PMIs.
How sterling – and, in turn, the FTSE – performs across the rest of the day is going to be dependent on the state of Theresa May’s Brexit speech. Not only what she proposes, but how the EU reacts to the comments – the fact she is going to ask Michel Barnier and co. to be ‘imaginative and creative’ suggests they may not go down well.
Talking of the eurozone, the euro is in a good mood this Friday, its gains against the pound joined by a 0.4% increase against the dollar. This has left the region’s indices rather mixed; the DAX is down 0.2%, taking it away from 12600, while the CAC is flirting with growth following a better than expecting pair of French PMIs.
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