FTSE 100, Europe and US stocks slide over rate cut pessimism as Indian voters decimate Modi majority

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UK football club Watford has put 10% of the club on the line in a sale of digital equity to fans in the hope of raising £17.5m. The offering would value the club at £175m, with shares available for just over £12 each.

It is the largest digital equity share offer by a single club in the history of English football.

Fans will receive dividends on their investments but be granted no voting rights with regards to the club’s strategic direction, with improving the quality of Watford’s squad the key driver behind the initiative.

The US-based digital investment company Republic will facilitate the process of overseeing the proposed 10% sale. In 2022, Republic purchased crowdfunding platform Seedrs, which was previously used to raise funds for AFC Wimbledon.

It was previously reported that the club had also held investment talks with boxer Anthony Joshua.

The top line figures are as follows:

• UK total retail sales increased by 0.7% year on year in May, against a growth of 3.9% in May 2023. This was above the three-month average growth of 0.3% and below the 12-month average growth of 2%.

• Food sales increased 3.6% year on year over the three months to May, against a growth of 9.6% in May 2023. This is below the 12-month average growth of 6.4%. For the month of May, food was in growth year-on-year.

• Non-food sales decreased 2.4% year on year over the three-months to May, against a growth of 0.7% in May 2023. This is steeper than the 12-month average decline of 1.7%. For the month of May, non-food was in decline year-on-year.

• In-store non-food sales over the three months to May decreased 2.7% year on year, against a growth of 2.9% in May 2023. This is below the 12-month average decline of 1.1%.

• Online non-food sales increased by 1.5% year on year in May, against an average decline of 3% in May 2023. This was above the 3-month and 12-month average declines of 1.8% and 2.6% respectively.

• Online: the proportion of Non-Food items bought online increased to 36.7% in May from 35.9% in May 2023. This was slightly higher than the 12-month average of 36.1%.

Oil has lost 1.7% since the start of the day on Tuesday, in addition to a more than 3% drop the day before, clearly showing the market's reaction to the OPEC+ meeting over the weekend.

"The technical picture in oil has turned very bearish," said Alex Kuptsikevich, FxPro senior market analyst. "OPEC+ agreed to an impressive extension of low production quotas, but markets are paying more attention to the short-term supply-demand balance and viewed the move as underwhelming."

"In the middle of last week, WTI crude bounced off resistance in the form of the 200-day moving average and moved closer towards the lower end of the May trading range. Oil is also trading below its 50-day average, which is pointing downwards. All of this is evidence of an intensifying bearish medium and long-term trend.

"Earlier, we also pointed out that the cartel, especially Saudi Arabia and Russia, is becoming hawkish, preferring to give active signals or cut production when the price gets close to the 200-week average. This curve reflects ultra-long-term trends, averaging the price over almost four years. Oil has been receiving impressive support after touching this line in 2019 and 2023. Since the beginning of this year, there have been new attempts to break below, which have so far resulted in strong upside momentum."

British American Tobacco stock is down around 1.3% this morning in London as it reported low-single-digit organic revenue growth and tempered expectations for its first half.

The Lucky Strike maker said the US market — one of its key drivers — had proved a tough environment, where both its traditional tobacco business and e-cigarette vertical are struggling.

The company sia

More than 1 trillion rupees (£9.7bn) has been wiped off the value of industrial conglomerate Adani Enterprises as the result of the Indian general election appears to be closer than expected.

It was the biggest negative mover on the Mumbai stock exchange, with the benchmark Sensex index falling more than 7% by afternoon trading.

Adani is considered a longtime close associate of Hindu-nationalist Modi, both from Gujarat state.

Opposition parties and other critics have accused Adani of benefitting from their relationship to unfairly win business and avoid proper oversight.

Shares in the AI darling were higher in pre-market after it was announced that cloud data platform Snowflake (SNOW) is entering a partnership with Nvidia to help customers build bespoke, use-case specific AI applications.

Nvidia also got a boost after it revealed its next-generation artificial intelligence processors for 2026, codenamed “Rubin”, at the Computex conference in Taipei.

Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang stated: “Today, we are at the cusp of a major shift in computing. The intersection of AI and accelerated computing is set to redefine the future.”

The company continues to take big strides toward becoming the most valuable company on the planet. Its current market cap of $2.695tn puts Nvidia in third position behind Microsoft (MSFT) and Apple (AAPL)

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway appeared to plunge 99% on Monday before a trading pause as a technical glitch hit the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

Berkshire Hathaway, the company run by famed investor Warren Buffett, saw its A-class shares plunge to $185.10 (£144.87) from Friday’s closing price of $627,400 before its trading was halted. After the shares later resumed trading, they immediately recovered all those losses and shot towards $700,000.

The NYSE said the problem was related to Limit Up-Limit Down bands meant to prevent extraordinary market volatility and extreme price movements in individual stock by preventing trades outside specific price ranges that are updated throughout the trading day.

NYSE said after markets closed on Monday that all trades at or below $603,718.3 would be cancelled.

READ MORE: Trending tickers: latest investor updates on Berkshire Hathaway, Nvidia, Novavax and Adani Enterprises

After a mixed day of trade in the US yesterday, US indices are trending lower:

Finalto's Neil Wilson has the latest on the macro situation:

Here's the latest ONS data:

• The provisional combined number of domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) saw a notable increase during January 2024 (174), falling during February (152), before seeing a sharp decrease during March 2024 (100).

• The number of completed mergers and acquisitions in March 2024 was lower than the number of deals in January 2024 and February 2024 for all three types of acquisitions. For inward (33) and outward (13) M&A, the numbers in March 2024 dropped to levels last seen in August 2020 (27 inward deals) and November 2020 (11 outward deals).

It was a mixed day of trade in Asia as the Indian election count got underway. Indian shares tanked, while other regions held out for more news on rate cuts, making muted moves.

The Nikkei in Japan (^N225) was 0.2% lower, as the Hang Seng (^HSI) in Hong Kong rose 0.6% in the session. Korea's KOSPI (^KS11) was down 0.8%.

Meanwhile, a surge in GameStop (GME) shares grabbed the spotlight, firing up speculation again of a return to a 2021-style meme rally.

The stock skyrocketed over 100% at one point after a Reddit post apparently by Keith Gill — aka "Roaring Kitty" — showed a big bet by the influential trader. Fellow meme darling AMC's (AMC) shares shot up as much as 27% alongside the move.

GameStop is currently more than 8% higher in premarket.

US stocks closed mixed on Monday to kick off a volatile first trading day of June.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) finished the day in positive territory, up about 0.6%, after flip flopping throughout the trading session. The benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) did the same, rising about 0.1% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) recovered from steeper losses to shed more than 100 points, or around 0.3%.

A weaker-than-expected reading on the manufacturing sector pushed the major averages lower as investors debate the future path of Fed rate cuts. Bond yields also moved to the downside, with the 10-year Treasury yield (^TNX) falling about 11 basis points to trade near 4.40%.

Hello from London. Overnight we've had the election count in India. According to the BBC, early trends show Narendra Modi's BJP-led NDA alliance is leading in nearly 300 seats.

Over in the UK i'll be keeping an eye on the BRC retail sales report and Barclays' consumer spend index.

Let's get to it.