Despite the pound falling once again, the FTSE couldn’t avoid the wider market losses as it did on Wednesday, the UK index stumbling out of the gates.
The FTSE gave back much of yesterday’s growth as Thursday got underway, shedding half a percent to duck back under 7750. A few key stocks – like BT Group (LON:BT), Shell (LON:RDSa), GlaxoSmithKline and Diageo (LON:DGE) – going ex-dividend contributed to this decline, as did a hefty 9% plunge from holiday operator TUI.
It appears that investors weren’t confident in TUI’s promise that it was on track to post double-digit earnings growth for the full year, given that in Q3 underlying EBITA dropped 12.7% to €193.4 million. Revenue, at least, was solid, climbing 5% to €5.02 billion despite the European heatwave making it so that last minute sun-seekers had no reason to leave home.
There’s a chance the FTSE’s losses would have been even greater on Thursday if the pound didn’t get off to another awful start. Though it opened unchanged against the euro – that still leaves sterling at a 9 month low – cable fell a further 0.3%, forcing the pound under $1.285 for the first time in almost a year. The fears of a ‘no deal’ Brexit have really gathered steam in the last few sessions, a snowball effect stemming from Mark Carney and Liam Fox’s warnings either side of the weekend.
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