Yahoo Finance FTSE 100 Live: Index slips into red, UK private sector grows, house prices to fall
Pressure on house prices is set to continue in 2024 after the country’s biggest lender today forecast a decline of between 2% and 4% next year.
Halifax released its outlook statement a day after the Bank of England warned that UK interest rates will stay in restrictive territory for an extended period.
Markets remain hopeful that interest rates will fall next year, a stance fuelled by the tone of this week’s US Federal Reserve policy announcement.
FTSE 100 Live Friday
House prices forecast to fall in 2024
Naked Wines slashes costs
Halifax and Nationwide have it wrong — here's where house prices will go in 2024
11:06 , Daniel O'Boyle
Yes it is that crystal ball time of year again.
Today two of the country’s biggest mortgage lenders Halifax and Nationwide both offer their prognostications for the property market in 2024.
Given how often their monthly house prices indices are at odds it is perhaps surprising to see them singing from the same hymn sheet on this occasion. Halifax goes for a fall of 2% to 4% over the year, while Nationwide is going for “low single digit decline or broadly flat” in 2024.
Ofgem to hike energy price cap to help firms handle record bad debts
10:31 , Daniel O'Boyle
Londoners’ energy bills could go up by £16 per household this Spring if new proposals to help multi-billion pound firms cope with record levels of bad debt are approved.
Ofgem, the main industry watchdog, launched a consultation on its plans today, with the level of unpaid bills in the industry nearing £3 billion. It would use the price cap mechanism for the levy, starting in April.
The “one-off” increase would be paid “between April 2024 and March 2025, Ofgem said, making it “equivalent to around £1.33 a month”.
Trainline jumps 16% in robust FTSE 250, Glencore up 3%
10:05 , Graeme Evans
Trainline shares today jumped 16% after the government ditched plans to create a Great British Railways ticketing website and app.
The removal of competition uncertainty helped shares in the booking platform to accelerate 45.6p to 329.8p, a performance aided by Barclays upgrading its target price to 355p.
However, the FTSE 250-listed stock is still a long way off the 500p seen in 2021 prior to the government announcing plans for a rival ticketing app.
The Department for Transport said yesterday: “We are confirming that we are not pursuing plans to deliver a centralised Great British Railways online rail ticket retailer.
“Train operators will continue to retail to passengers online alongside existing third-party retailers while we develop measures to spur further competition in the online rail ticket retail market to make things better for passengers.”
Trainline's improvement came as the UK-focused FTSE 250 followed last night’s 3% rise by putting on another 77.82 points to 19,334.78, its best level since May.
Stocks up 3% or more included Currys and pubs chain JD Wetherspoon.
The FTSE 100 index rose 5.66 points to 7654.64, consolidating the 1.3% advance seen after the Federal Reserve signalled three rate cuts in 2024. Dollar weakness boosted the appeal of miners, with Glencore up 3% or 14.15p to 467.9p.
Expectations for lower rates were fuelled this morning by Europe’s worse-than-expected PMI updates, while the UK’s services sector beat hopes and manufacturing missed.
Private sector growth at six-month high
10:03 , Daniel O'Boyle
UK public sector output grew at the faster pace in six months in December, according to a closely watched survey.
The S&P Global / CIPS Flash United Kingdom PMI increased to 51.7 for December, from 50.7 in October. Any figure above 50 represents growth.
Manufacturing remains in decline, but the dominant service sector posted a reading of 52.7.
The UK figures contrast with weak PMI reading for the Eurozone.
Matthew Ryan,Head of Market Strategy at global financial services firm Ebury, said: “We had a very mixed bag of macroeconomic news out of Europe this morning. The Euro Area economy appears to be barrelling towards a technical recession in Q4, at least if the latest business activity PMI data is anything to go by. The December composite index fell well short of consensus, following broad-based downturns in activity in both Germany and France, and has now remained pinned below the key level of 50 for seven straight months.
“By contrast, the UK economy looks to be in a much healthier state, with economic activity seemingly accelerating as we approach year-end. Not only did Britain’s composite PMI leap to a six-month high in December but, at 51.7, is also now comfortably in expansionary territory. This should both quell investor concerns surrounding the possibility of a UK recession, and vindicate the Bank of England’s ‘higher for longer’ stance on interest rates.”
Heathrow expects passenger numbers to hit record levels in 2024
09:51 , Daniel O'Boyle
Heathrow Airport expects passenger numbers to reach record levels next year.
Some 81.4 million passengers are predicted to travel through its terminals in 2024, according to a report published by the west London airport.
The airport’s current busiest year was 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic, when passenger numbers reached 80.9 million.
Miners in demand as FTSE 100 rises, Trainline up 17%
08:44 , Graeme Evans
Share price gains by miners and energy companies have kept the FTSE 100 index in positive territory after yesterday’s 1.3% improvement.
London’s top flight is up 7.97 points at 7,656.95, led by Glencore up 10.5p to 464.3p, Anglo American 34.8p higher at 1830.2p and Shell up 17.5p to 2537.5p.
The progress follows recent dollar weakness, with the pound at $1.275 this morning.
Among the blue-chip fallers, British Gas owner Centrica lost 1.2p to 142.75p after SocGen analysts removed their “buy” recommendation.
The FTSE 250 index followed yesterday’s 3% rise by adding another 115.06 points to 19,372.02, with Trainline up 17% or 63.2p to 347.4p after Barclays gave the online ticketing firm an improved target price of 355p.
House prices to fall by 2-4% in 2024 despite expected interest rate cuts, Halifax says
08:24 , Daniel O'Boyle
House prices across the UK are set to fall by between 2% and 4% in 2024, according to the country’s top mortgage lender Halifax, a steeper fall than we saw in 2023.
The average house price in the UK is at £283,615 after the property market proved surprisingly resilient in 2023, with average prices only down by 1%. Director of Halifax Mortgages Kim Kinnaird, however, noted that prices did fall more quickly in the middle of the year, before recovering in recent months.
She said: “To some extent this masks the fluctuations we’ve seen in the housing market throughout 2023. As wider economic headwinds began to bite, house prices fell for six consecutive months between April and September, before rising again later in the year as prospects improved.”
Consumer confidence improves in December
07:45 , Graeme Evans
GfK’s consumer confidence index for December has improved to minus 22, up two points on last month and a big jump of 20 points on the score ahead of last Christmas.
All five sub-measures rose, with the one relating to personal finance situations over the next 12 months up by one point to minus two. This compares with minus 29 a year earlier,
The major purchases index improved by one point to minus 23 and the question assessing the general economic situation over the next 12 months by five points to minus 44.
The overall caution in the survey comes with interest rates at a 15-year high and price rises continuing to erode disposable income.
Naked Wines slashes costs after going concern warning
07:45 , Daniel O'Boyle
Online wine seller Naked Wines has slashed costs and intends to cut them further as it aims to recover from a slide in sales that led to questions about its ability to stay afloat.
As revealed earlier this year, the business made a loss of £9.7 million in the six months to 2 October as sales fell by 20%, leading the company to warn their were questions about its ability to continue as a going concern. Last month, it warned that US sales had fallen further in the weeks since.
But executive chair Rowan Gormley, who took over CEO duties as Nick Devlin left the role last month, said the business was starting to get things back on track.
He said: “We are moving towards a period of sustained cash generation. We have taken out £3 million of cost with £10 million more to come and expect to generate £40-50 million of cash from inventory over the next 18 months. In addition we have made good progress with testing an enhanced customer proposition to restore us to growth. I want to thank our people, our winemakers and our customers for their support and reiterate our determination to make sure that they are rewarded for it.”
The business continues to warn that under a "severe but plausible downside scenario" its status as a going concern would be at risk.
FTSE 100 set to consolidate 1.3% rise, Hang Seng up 2%
07:24 , Graeme Evans
The FTSE 100 index is today expected to consolidate the gains seen yesterday on the back of rate cut projections by the US Federal Reserve.
London’s top flight closed 1.3% higher last night, even though the Bank of England and European Central Bank warned their rates will stay in restrictive territory for a long time yet.
Rate-sensitive stocks such as Persimmon and Land Securities closed about 6% higher as traders bet that the Federal Reserve's latest dot plot projections marked a turning point in global monetary policy.
Wall Street shares held on to their gains of the previous session as the S&P 500 index last night closed up 0.3% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average crept further into record territory.
CMC Markets expects the FTSE 100 index to open 12 points higher at 7661, with attention focused on this morning’s preliminary PMI readings from various European economies.
In Asia, the Hang Seng index rose 2% but the Shanghai Composite lost 0.5%. Figures earlier showed China industrial production rose by a bigger-than-expected 6.6% in November, the fastest annual pace since February 2022.
Recap: Yesterday's top stories
Thursday 14 December 2023 23:21 , Simon Hunt
Good morning from the City desk of the Evening Standard.
It's back! After a prolonged Covid hiatus the notorious City Spy has finally made a return, reincarnated as a newsletter, and we couldn't be more excited for its relaunch.
We've got dozens of great stories lined up for you over the next few weeks, so do be sure to subscribe for the latest gossip, scoops, rumours and gaffes from around the Square Mile and beyond. This newsletter will go out every Thursday and you'll see the best bits in a weekly column in the paper on Fridays.
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Our stories from this week's newsletter include:
Here's a summary of our top business stories from yesterday:
Virgin Money and HSBC lead the charge on mortgage rate cutting as markets now price in 1.25% interest rate cuts next year despite Bank of England rate freeze today
Artillery man Chris Weston on £850,000 salary to lead its fight for financial survival
Currys reduces first half losses to £16 million as it finally fixes jinxed Nordic operation
Temu files fresh lawsuit against rival Shein
Mobile phone reseller musicMagpie reports record Black Friday
Weworks boss sees strong bookings in London despite US bankruptcy
