With the Dow Jones back under 34,000 after concerns out at the thought of a Biden tax hike, the European markets were slow out of the gates on Friday morning. As the flash manufacturing and services PMIs for April continue to roll out, the FTSE 100 barely moved, dipping 0.15% to 6,927.66 at mid-morning trading.
“Following a rough few sessions, the pound, on the other hand, tried to pick itself up. Against the dollar it rose 0.4%, pushing back towards $1.389 – remember, at one point this week, cable crossed $1.40. Sterling benefited from a far better than forecast UK retail sales figure, the number hitting a 9-month peak of 5.4%,” said Connor Campbell, financial analyst at Spreadex.
“The UK is hoping for improvements in both its manufacturing and services readings. The former is set to sneak 0.1 higher to 59.0, while the latter is expected to see a slightly more robust rise thanks to the country’s spring-time re-opening, from 56.3 to 58.9 month-on-month,” Campbell added.
The Eurozone indices echoed the slow start of the FTSE 100. With a rise in the German manufacturing PMI, but a dip in its services equivalent, the DAX was down 0.2%. The CAC, meanwhile, was flat, despite both French flash PMIs surpassing estimates.
“Looking to this afternoon and the Dow Jones is straining to get back to 33,900, though is set to fall short with a 0.2% increase. As for the US PMIs, the manufacturing reading is expected to jump from 59.1 to 60.9, with the services figure climbing from 60.4 to 61.6,” Campbell said.
FTSE 100 Top Movers
Evraz (1.19%), Glencore (1.15%) and Intertek (1.14%) are the top movers on the FTSE 100 on Friday morning having made modest gains so far.
The biggest fallers on the UK index are IAG (-2.11%), Next (-1.65%) and Land Securities Group (-1.40%).
UK Retail Sales
Retail sales continued moving up in March with a rise of 5.4% as Covid restrictions are increasingly being eased. The rise surpassed economists’ expectations of a monthly increase of 1.5%, according to data released by the ONS on Friday.
Sales were 1.6% higher than in February, before the pandemic impacted the UK economy.