The FTSE 100 was up, then down, early on Tuesday morning as the index struggled for direction. Having lost 0.12% at the time of writing, “investors weighed a weak session on Wall Street overnight and slowing growth in UK consumer spending,” says AJ Bell financial analyst Danni Hewson.
“With the flood of big companies reporting on both sides of the Atlantic slowing to a trickle and with trading volumes seeing their usual summer lull there is a sleepy feel to the markets at present,” Hewson added.
“However, previous experience suggests it might not take much to jolt investors awake, six years ago an August sell-off in China prompted a sharp correction around the globe.”
Mounting concern that the spread of the Delta variant might set back the Chinese recovery, after it became the first major economy to emerge from the pandemic, is a risk the world will be watching.
FTSE 100 Top Movers
Flutter Entertainment (7.65%), Hargreaves Lansdown (2.23%) and Entain (1.28%) are leading the way on the FTSE 100 during the morning session.
At the bottom end, InterContinental Hotels Group (-2.33%), M&G (-1.93%) and Rolls-Royce (-1.51%) lost the most ground out of the UK’s top 100 companies.
Flutter Entertainment
Flutter Entertainment, the parent company of Paddy Power, Sky Bet and others, announced it had increased its profits for H1 as the company exceeded its expectations.
The FTSE 100 group’s pre-tax profit rose by as much as 221% to £77m.
Flutter Entertainment’s group revenue nearly doubled to £3.05bn, as the number of monthly users grew by 40%.