Proactive Investors -
- FTSE 100 down 70 points at 7,653
- House prices rise for third month in a row
- WPP (LON:WPP) rises on Kantar Media sale reports
WPP a rare riser on Kantar Media sale reports
Leading the FTSE 100 risers is WPP PLC, up 2.6%, after Sky reported that Kantar Media is to be put up for sale.
Kantar Media is a division of the Kantar market research giant which employs 25,000 people around the world.
Sky cited City sources saying that Bain Capital, Kantar's majority owner, was in the process of appointing investment bankers to oversee a sale process.
Exclusive: Kantar Media, which manages Britain’s BARB TV audience measurement system, is to be put up for sale in a deal that could deliver a £1bn-plus windfall for buyout firm Bain Capital and marketing services group WPP, Kantar Group’s two shareholders. https://t.co/BYeZkYvd60— Mark Kleinman (@MarkKleinmanSky) January 5, 2024
Industry insiders said that Kantar Media could be worth as much as £1 billion, the report added.
Bain acquired a 60% stake in Kantar in 2019 in a deal which valued the research and analytics group at about £3.2 billion.
The remaining 40% stake continues to be owned by WPP, the FTSE 100 group.
Kantar Media conducts broadcast audience measurement in 62 countries, including France, Spain, Norway and parts of Latin America.
US future point downwards ahead of payrolls
It's looking like another ugly start on Wall Street although that could all change with the usually influential US jobs report to come.
In pre-market trading, futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 0.3%, while those for the S&P 500 were 0.3% lower and contracts for the Nasdaq 100 futures declined 0.4%.
Joshua Mahony at Scope Markets said the session “will be dominated by the latest jobs report, with markets looking for signs of weakness that might further embolden bulls over the potential for a March rate cut from the Fed.”
“Expectations of a rise in unemployment and weaker payrolls do highlight the possibility of a “bad news is good news” response from markets, with equity bulls hoping to see payrolls remain under pressure for the time being,” he added.
Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) estimates nonfarm payrolls rose 190,000 in December, above the market consensus of 175,000.
Its forecast reflects a favourable swing in the December seasonal factors worth roughly 50,000 and a boost from mild winter weather, as snowfall was minimal in major cities in the Northeast and Midwest.
It predicts that the unemployment rate will stay unchanged at 3.7%, compared to consensus of a rebound to 3.8% and estimates a 0.30% increase in average hourly earnings month-on-month that lowers the year-on-year rate by one tenth to 3.9%.
Back in London, and the FTSE 100 is down 70 points at 7,653.
ING sees first Euro rate cut in June
ING Economics is backing its expectation of a first rate cut by the ECB in June following today's inflation figures which showed an rise from 2.4 to 2.9%, mainly due to fading energy base effects.
ING's Bert Colijn said the increase "serves as a reminder that interest rate cuts in the first quarter are unlikely but this shouldn’t dispel expectations of cuts later in the year."
"We stick to our expectation of a first cut in June," he said.
He said demand remains weak, which is a very important disinflationary driver right now, and inventories are high, making current supply chain concerns much less inflationary than the ones from 2021.
He feels overall, the outlook for inflation "continues to be quite benign and we expect eurozone inflation to be around 2% again by the end of the year."