Proactive Investors - FTSE 100 down 0.5% to 7,475
Housebuilders Barratt, Persimmon (LON:PSN), Taylor Wimpey (LON:TW) lead losers
Wall Street futures seen lower
Bitcoin and Ethereum down modestly
UK market closes half-day at 12:30pm
12:10pm: FTSE 100 in the red ahead of early close
At midday, London’s blue-chip benchmark was down some 37 points or 0.5% changing hands at 7,475.
Looking line by line at the London stock movers:
JD Sports shares were in favour, up 2.76% trading at 126.55p.
Also higher was bottler Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) HBC which gained 1.97% to 1,967.5p, whilst Mexican silver miner Fresnillo (LON:FRES) and retailer Next PLC added 1.5% and 1.25% respectively to 898p and 5,826p.
Housebuilders Barratt Developments (LON:BDEV), Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey were obvious fallers – losing 2.4% to 399.3p, 2.19% to 1,227.5p, and 2.2% to 101.5p - as investors reacted to the latest bearish monthly print in the Nationwide House Price Index.
Similarly, Rightmove shares fell 1.6% to 516p.
Ocado (LON:OCDO) was another notable name on the losers list as was BT Group (LON:BT) as the portfolio favourites each gave up 1.6%, to 623.2p and 113.45p respectively.
12:05pm: US Futures seen lower as London approaches half-day close
US equity futures declined on Friday, as 2022 is lined up to be the worst year in more than a decade for global equities.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 retreated, with the latter losing a third of its value in 2022 as tech stocks struggled with rising interest rates.
Uncertainty has most recently sapped hopes for a rally to close out the year, which has seen global stocks lose 20% of their value since last January amidst rising interest rates and inflating consumer prices.
Today, Dow Jones futures were down 0.3% as were S&P futures whilst the Nasdaq pre-market price was 0.4% lower.
European and emerging-market stocks were similarly lower.
Elsewhere, oil broke a three-day losing streak to rise on Friday.
Brent crude was up 5 cents at US$83.51 a barrel though West Texas Intermediate crude was still down, dipping 12 cents to US$78.28.
It draws the year to a close on squib, significantly below 2022’s highs, nevertheless, the intense volatility caused by Russia’s war with Ukraine leaves crude prices some 7% higher than this time last year.
The supply side remains tight and tense, as war continues, though in recent weeks the commodity market’s attentions have been on demand which appears to be waning amidst recession in key major markets, especially China.
11:45am: Bitcoin down modestly on Friday
Major crypto markets were trading lower in Friday morning’s deals, with Bitcoin down 0.6% changing hands at US$16,504.
It marks a 2.09% decline over the festive week.
Nevertheless, according crypto analyst Marcus Sotiriou the technical trading picture looks brighter, if it can stay above a key level on the charts – otherwise it will drop notably lower still.
“Bitcoin is hovering above a critical up-trending line of support and if it fails to hold could mean that Bitcoin trends back down to the low of $15,500 in the short term,” said Sotiriou, analyst at crypto broker GlobalBlock.
“Despite the bearish price action we have seen over the past year, Glassnode data indicates that Bitcoin whales have continued to accumulate.”
Citing data from Glassnode, the analyst said the number of Bitcoin ‘whale’ addresses (entities on the blockchain with more than 10,000 Bitcoin) have risen sharply this year as big long-term bulls shopped for bargains.
“This means there is a significantly larger portion of Bitcoin whales now compared to the start of the year, as whales have decided to accumulate more Bitcoin whilst It is discounted,” Sotiriou noted.
Elsewhere, Ethereum like Bitcoin similarly dipped 0.6% to US$1,192, which leaves it 2.49% lower for the past seven days.
Amongst the alt coins Ripple’s XRP token is down 2.33% on Friday and is off 3.5% for the week, whilst Cardano’s ADA was 1.66% lower today and down 6.7% over seven days.
Dogecoin was, as it frequently is, the most volatile amongst the so-called alt coins as it fell 4.2% in the past 24hrs and is down 12.6% since last Friday.
8:30am: Quiet sobering end to trading year
The FTSE 100 has begun a predictably quiet and shortened trading session by opening lower, falling 33 points or 0.45% to 7,479 in early deals.
Unsurprisingly there’s little to no major news events among the blue-chip or mid-cap market segments, meanwhile, the commentary around macro-economic environment continues to paint a pretty bleak picture – with fresh headlines in recent days of yet more energy price rises, updates on various strike actions, and, absurdist images of shoppers queuing for hours to buy a Youtuber’s flavoured water drink.
Today, the Resolution Foundation think tank predicted 2023 will be “groundhog year” in which the cost of living crisis is expected to deepen with lower pay, higher tax and further soaring energy bills.
Living standards will get “far worse” before they get better, the think tank says, in a report, albeit it says that it believes inflation has already peaked but that won’t immediately mean prices will fall.
Elsewhere, with more concrete data the Nationwide Building Society’s monthly update to its House Price Index showed a 0.1% decline in the UK’s average house prices, marking the fourth consecutive month of decline.
The average price of a UK home is now £262,068 according to the Nationwide index.
December’s fractional drop followed November’s 1.4% decline and sees the price some 2.5% off the August peak with September’s calamitous ‘mini-budget’ from the flash-in-the-pan Truss and Kwarteng government seen as the turning point for the housing market, after it spike interest rates putting up the costs and ruling out a meaningful portion of potential buyers.
7:15am: FTSE 100 seen lower
The FTSE 100 is predicted to open the last trading day of 2022 on the back foot.
CFD provider IG Index calls the blue-chip index some 18 points lower, making a price of 7,490 to 7,492 with just less than an hour to go until the start of trading.
Ahead of the New Year’s celebrations this weekend today is a shortened trading day with the London Stock Exchange closing at 12:30pm.