Spreadex Market Update

FTSE and co. sink as trade talks countdown begins



Having rebounded on Wednesday, the markets tanked again on Thursday, the prospect of crunch-time trade talks between the US and China – talks that have until 12.01am on Friday to try and avert Trump’s latest tariff smack down – doing nothing to relieve the market’s unease.

Banks, miners, oil stocks were all in a terrible state at the start of the session, forcing the FTSE more than half a percent lower. That leaves the index barely above 7230, and at its worst price for 6-weeks.

That kind of performance was replicated in the Eurozone. The DAX dropped 1.1%, returning the German bourse to 12070, a handful of points above Monday’s 3-week low. The CAC, meanwhile, was stripped of 50 points, the index tumbling under 5350.

Considering the ticking trade clock, investors are going to be hyper-vigilant for any signs that the US and China might be able to pull back from the brink; however, any news likely won’t be until this afternoon, leaving the European indices to wallow in thoughts of the worst-case scenario.

The macro-focused trading meant that a couple of Thursday’s big corporate updates got lost in the shuffle. First quarter like-for-like retail sales at Morrisons were up a meagre 0.2%, continuing a worrying quarter-on-quarter slide that has been in place across the last year, and way off analysts’ estimates of 0.5%. Once again the company was rescued by the wholesale side of things, the division – which supplies Amazon and McColl’s – seeing like-for-like growth of 2.1%. The supermarket dipped 0.3% as investors processed the report, unable to reverse the slump that set in back in February.

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