Proactive Investors -
- FTSE 100 up one point to 8200
- Caterer Compass impresses with more quarterly growth
- Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL)'s largest takeover called off
FTSE inch above flatline
The FTSE 100 has broken into positive territory, by just one point in fact at just under 8200.
It's hard to see what's happened exactly.
There's been no assistance from the miners, which remain the big fallers and unmoved from earlier.
Heavyweight oilers Shell (LON:SHEL) and BP (LON:BP) are also a drag, with Brent crude having taken a dive in the past hour, down 1.2% to $81.61 per barrel.
The pound is down slightly, 0.15% off versus the dollar at 1.2912.
The FTSE was lower this morning "largely because of its lack of tech, which is the star sector so far this week", says market analyst Kathleen Brooks at XTB.
She noted that notable US value companies underperformed on Monday, including airlines and oil and gas companies, while the small and mid caps of the Russell 2000 rallied, led by small cap tech stocks.
Losses pared
The Footsie's losses have been pared in the past half hour, now down 10 points, though of the top 15 largest companies by market cap, only three are in green - Unilever (LON:ULVR), GSK (LON:GSK) and LSEG.
Compass Group (LON:CPG), which is in the top 20 largest stocks, is doing its best to keep the index in the right direction, up 4.5% now.
Barclays (LON:BARC) analyst Vicki Stern says expectations were low going into the Q3 results today, but the 10.3% organic growth number beat the consensus forecast of 9.5% was taken well by the market.
She says the FY guidance update was also a slight raise to "underlying operating profit growth above 15%" on a constant-currency basis, with organic revenue growth above 10% compared to "towards 15% EBIT growth with 10% OSG" previously, while the FY consensus OSG was for 10.2% and 15% EBIT growth and 7.1% margin.
The positive tone in management's comments on net new contracts, retention and /signings momentum "is key", says Stern, "as this has been a source of concern for the last few Qs".
Losses have also been trimmed for the FTSE 250, down 33 at 21,105.
Hammerson, SThree (LON:STEMS) and Future are the top risers there.
Water regulation shake-up
Water companies are all leaking lower, led by Pennon Group PLC (LON:PNN), down 1.4%, following an update from the Environment Agency that set out further plans to transform regulation of the water industry.
The agency, as well as showing its South West Water business remained one of the worst performing in the past year, said in the report that the pace of improvement from companies "continues to fall short".
It laid out plans to recruiting 500 more staff and quadruple inspections by next March.
United Utilities Group PLC (LON:UU) and Severn Trent PLC (LON:SVT) were both down 0.8%.
FTSE and most of Europe in the red
The Footsie is holding at just around 30 points to the negative in this first hour, a deficit in the region of 0.35%.
It's mid-cap sibling is down 0.2%.
European stocks are mostly in the red, led by France's CAC 40 and Italy's FTSE MIB, down 0.4%.
Germany's DAX is the exception, up 0.4%, led by Bayer (ETR:BAYGN), Infineon and Siemens.
"The Chinese commodity clouds weighed on the FTSE100 at the open," says market analyst Richard Hunter at Interactive Investor, as copper prices come under pressure due to growing concerns about the ongoing weak demand from the People's Republic.
Hunter notes that weakness in the mining sector has been exacerbated by two broker downgrades on Anglo American (JO:AGLJ), whose Kumba iron ore subsidiary also reported a production update today, where it said the macro and logistics environment continues to be "challenging".
The FTSE 350 mining sector has sunk to its lowest level since early April.