The FTSE 100 is seen slightly lower ahead of Tuesday’s open as investor sentiments remain subdued.
CFD firm IG Markets has the London benchmark some 30 points lower with just over an hour to go until the open, making a price of 7,187 to 7,190.
It picks up from an upbeat opening session for the week, though the momentum proved hard to hold onto.
“Even though sentiment was more buoyant, with US markets also rebounding strongly, there was always that nagging doubt that any rebound was always one negative headline away from coming unstuck, as is so often the case when you get bear market rallies,” said CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson.
“This caution turned out to be justified, as soon after Europe had closed, it was being reported that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) was planning to slow hiring and spending heading into 2023 in a number of key areas. This followed on from a similar decision by Google owner Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) last week to do something similar with respect to hiring in the latter part of this year and into 2023.
“These reports prompted US markets to slide back and close lower on the day, highlighting once again how fragile sentiment currently is ahead of next week, when we’ll get to hear the holy trinity of big tech announce their latest quarterly numbers, with Alphabet, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Apple, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Meta all updating the markets.”
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones lost 215 points or 0.69% to close Monday at 31,072.
The S&P 500 at the same time slipped 0.84% lower to 3,830 and the Nasdaq fell 0.81% to finish the day at 11,360.
America’s small-cap Russell 2000 index meanwhile fared better, losing a mere 0.34% to 1,738.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei rallied 183 points or 0.68% to 26,969 whilst Hong Kong’s Hang Seng moved the other way, down 0.91% to 20,656, and the Shanghai Composite dipped 0.35% lower to 3,266.
Around the markets
The pound: US$1.1961, up 0.08%
Gold: US$1,710 per ounce, up 0.08%
Silver: US$18.74 per ounce, up 0.08%
Brent crude: US$105.93 per barrel, up 4.7%
WTI crude: US$102.28 per barrel, up 4.6%
Bitcoin: US$22,062, up 0.86%
Ethereum: US$1,536, up 1.4%