The pound is rising against all of its major peers today after Tuesday saw the currency hit an 11-month low against the euro after comments from PM May in South Africa that a no-deal Brexit wouldn’t be the end of the world.
Sterling has been recovering in recent trade against the US dollar, but this is largely down to weakness in the buck and over the past month the currency has in fact fallen against all of its major peers.
The FTSE began yesterday brightly after an extended break, boosted by US stocks hitting all-time highs, but the joy has proved fairly short lived with this morning seeing the market move to its lowest level of the week, down 25 points, and the index trades not far from last week’s closing level.
Aston Martin to float in London
Despite the softness in the broader index there has been some good news for the London Stock Exchange this morning, with Aston Martin announcing plans to float later this year after a pleasing set of half-year results.
The iconic British carmaker is expected to be valued at around £5B, with the move to list coming after both sales and profits hit record levels in the first half of the year, taking the consecutive run of profitable quarters to 7. The recent hot streak is all the more impressive when you consider the firm’s chequered financial past, with the luxury carmaker having been declared bankrupt on no fewer than 7 occasions. This coincidence of 7s evokes memories of perhaps the most iconic Aston Martin owner of them all, James Bond 007, and the company will take more than a quantum of solace from the strong recent performance while remaining mindful that it could still die another day.
British Gas pay £2.65M for erroneous charges
According to regulator Ofgem,the decision by British Gas to charge customers its more expensive standard variable tariff after they decided to switch to a new supplier has resulted in the firm paying £2.65M in refunds, compensation and redress. The move which has been blamed on a 'system error' saw more than 94,000 customers who chose to switch to new suppliers overcharged while 2.5m customers were wrongly informed they might incur an exit fee. Despite the obvious negative publicity that this news creates, shares in parent company Centrica (LON:CNA) are actually higher on the day, gaining a little over 1% although they do remain not far from their lowest level since April.