Market overview: ECB minutes shows concern over China

LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - 1245: Minutes from the European Central Bank's governing council meeting last month showed that China and has been a key focus of policy makers. A section of the ECB statement reads: "In particular, financial developments in China could have a larger than expected adverse impact, given this country's prominent role in global trade. This risk could be compounded by negative knock-on effects from interest rate increases in the US on growth in EMEs." With the EU economy still suffering from low inflation and stagnant growth, currency analyst Jameel Ahmad at FXTM said he was expecting the ECB "to threaten the prospect of extending QE further during future policy meetings", to keep the euro weak. 1112: Vodafone is almost 2% higher as it is brought into focus by results from Liberty Global (NasdaqGS: LBTYA - news) , with which it has been in talks over a possible merger of assets for some weeks now. Analysts at Nomura expect discussions to continue over the summer before some update or resolution in the September. "The upside for both entities is clear to see and we remain confident that an offer for Vodafone Europe, which leaves Vodafone shareholders with a considerable interest in the premier convergence provider in Europe, will be an enticing prospect for Vodafone's board." 1045: Coca-Cola HBC is the top rise among blue chips on Thursday's London session so far, up almost 10%. The Coke bottler expressed confident of delivering a year of growth and making progress on margins. Despite difficulty in some markets, such as Russia, better results from elsewhere in Eastern Europe and Nigeria and margin expansion helped profits fizz 32% higher in the first-half. Anglo-German travel group TUI (LSE: TUI.L - news) is up 7% after revealing operating profit growth will be at the upper end of previous guidance, with earnings before interest, tax and amortisation up almost 19% in the third quarter. A big faller is Ophir, as its interim results plunged into the red. The oil company slashed its capital expenditure in response to falling oil prices and booked a pre-tax loss of $123m in the first half.

1030: Mike van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets, told clients this morning that equities are higher due to the markets were "relieved to hear China not seeking to aggressively devalue renminbi in order to offset slowing exports, with this week's FX drops deemed to have already corrected pent-up misalignment (downward pressure from loose global monetary policy) and any further declines from new floating rate system to be managed". He added that concerns about internal panic about slowing growth in the world's second biggest economy and 10% currency devaluation required to boost exports has thus been put in check for now, "even though it is unlikely to be far from the truth with data reliability regularly called into question". The FTSE 100 is holding at around 0.6% above yesterday's close. Germany's DAX is up 1.5%. Gold (Other OTC: GDCWF - news) has retreated from the week's earlier haven highs of $1125.

1020 : The Greek economy surprisingly expanded 0.8% in the second quarter compared the previous three-month period, despite the financial sector and government shutdowns during the period. Economists has estimated there would be a 0.5% contraction.

0915: The FTSE 100 was up 0.6% by 0915 BST and the more UK-focused FTSE 250 spiked 0.75%, following gains on Asian markets over night and after the S&P 500 index reversed a 1.5% intraday decline for the first time since May 2012 to close just about in positive territory. As well as a small oil price bounce, markets seemed to be less panicked by China's currency devaluation as a press conference in Beijing reiterated that the moves were merely part of its liberalisation strategy rather than as part of a new 'currency war'. Chinese-facing stocks showed similar reactions, with Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL - news) having ended its session 1.5% higher overnight having lost considerable ground on Tueasday and earlier on Wednesday's session, while on Thursday morning Burberry Group (Other OTC: BBRYF - news) was up 2.4%. Brenda Kelly at London Capital Group suggested the delaying of US interest rate rise was (Other OTC: UBGXF - news)