FTSE and European stocks mixed and US up as traders look to inflation data

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Donald Trump's social media platform Truth Social (DJT) surged as much as 40% in its first day of trading on the Nasdaq early Tuesday.

As of mid-morning trading, shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, Truth Social's parent company, were trading around $70 under the ticker symbol "DJT," Trump's initials.

Here's IG's take on the day of trade:

Not much has changed with the FTSE 100 as we head toward the closing bell. It's trading almost flat. Meanwhile, the more domestically-linked FTSE 250 is 0.5% up, suggesting smaller cap, more local stocks have been the winners in the London stock market today.

Memestock Gamestop reported results today, here's what happened:

The company had its best day in more than three months Monday, climbing over 15%. That is its largest daily percentage increase since December 2023, when it gained 9.7%.

Today, however, it's proving to be a bit of a nothingburger — trading almost flat.

The company has erased most of the gains it made during the meme stock investing era in 2021 as it crashed by 90%.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet expect GameStop to report fourth-quarter earnings of $0.30 a share and revenue of $2.05bn, down 10.1% year-over-year.

“GameStop will benefit from industry trends during the quarter, but continued losses in market share and a mix shift towards digital likely led to underperformance in the quarter,” analysts at Wedbush said.

The video game retailer turned meme stock will report its results for fiscal Q4 after the US stock market closes today, March 26.

Barclays analyst Kannan Venkateshwar upgraded the stock to overweight from equal weight and boosted his price target on shares to $135 (£107) from the prior $95. The move implies roughly 15% upside based on current trading levels of about $120 a share.

"The incessant Disney-related news flow ahead of the proxy vote has dominated investor considerations since last quarter's earnings, and we expect this to continue helping the stock near term," said Barclays.

Overall, while Barclays is now bullish on the stock, they acknowledged that Disney still has a number of challenges to work through and that visibility on many elements is still low.

READ MORE: Trending tickers: latest investor updates on Disney, GameStop, Flutter and Ocado

Here's more on why, by Pedro Goncalves:

The online grocer on Tuesday said retail revenue for the 13 weeks ended 3 March rose 10.6% to £645.3m from £583.7m a year earlier.

Average weekly orders rose 8.4% while the average basket value rose 2.1% to £125.47 and the average basket size remained flat at 45 items.

The retailer also reported a 6.4% increase in active customers, reaching 1.02 million by the end of the quarter.

In its trading update, the group said price inflation eased back to 2.2% in the three months, which it said was “significantly” lower than the wider market.

“This has translated to improvements in customer value perception,” according to Ocado.

Here's the chart:n

Finalised guidance for memes, reels and other social media promotions has been released by the FCA today. The guidance lays out examples of non-compliant promotions in areas like debt counselling and unregulated credit such as buy-now-pay-later schemes, as well as guidlines for high risk investments like crypto.

Catherine Mann, a rate-setter at the Bank of England, said on Bloomberg TV that she believes markets are being overzealous in the amount of rate cuts they expect by the end of the year.

"I think they are pricing in too many cuts, that would be my personal view. In some sense, I don’t have to cut because the market already is, in terms of the implications of the market curve and mortgage rates, for example," she said, adding: "Those are the rates that are faced by borrowers. Bank Rate is not the rates that borrowers face."

One of the reasons she gave for doubting an earlier cut than economies like the Eurozone or the US was sensitive wage dynamics in the UK.

The comments come following hints last week that rate cuts are on the table as soon as June. Bank governor Andrew Bailey said that rate cuts are "in play".

The rate at which the price of food is going up slowed to 4.5% in March, according to the latest data from Kantar, versus the 5.3% in the previous four-week period.

That hasn't stopped price-conscious Brits turning to promotions to manage the cost of living.

Despite the fact that food inflation hit its lowest level since February 2022, some 78% of shoppers are actively buying cheaper groceries, while more than two thirds (68%) are using promotions to help manage budgets, Kantar said.

Meanwhile, take-home grocery sales rose by 4.6% in the UK over the four weeks to 17 March.

Prices rose fastest in chocolate, sugar, and vitamins and fell fastest in butter, milk and toilet tissues.

All three major indexes clocked losses on Monday in the US, with the S&P 500, the Dow and the Nasdaq (^GSPC, ^DJI, ^IXIC) all dipping more than 0.3% by the close.

The big corporate story of the day in the US was the question of who would replace the outgoing Boeing CEO. Dave Calhoun announced his intention to step down from his chief executive position sometime in late 2024, following federal inquiries into the airline manufacturer's 737 Max 9 jets.

Asian stocks presented a mixed picture on Tuesday, with the Nikkei (^N225) closing flat, and stocks across China heading higher. The Nikkei has snapped last week's rally in recent days, as traders continue to digest the country's base rate moving above zero for the first time in over a decade.

The Hang Seng (^HSI) rose 0.8% and the SSE Composite (000001.SS) was up 0.2%. Chinese indexes seem undeterred by losses in the US on Monday.

Hello from London! After a fairly un-dramatic day in Europe yesterday the FTSE is lower just before market open. Markets are set to be quite calm going into the Easter break, with the drama of central bank announcements behind us, for now.