The FTSE’s losses intensified this Wednesday, dragged down not only by the talk of a £84 billion Brexit black hole, but by its floundering banking and commodity sectors.
Dropping by 50 points the UK index is now firmly back under the 7000 mark, hitting a one-ish week low in the process. Even with Lloyds cutting its decline to roughly a third of what it was just after the bell (the PPI-peddler is now down 1%) its third quarter report still pushed the majority of the UK banking sector into negative territory. More pressing than Lloyds was Antofagasta, which plunged 6% following a production update that saw the company shift full year output expectations towards the ‘lower end’ of its previous guidance. This, alongside a dip from Brent Crude, helped herd the rest of the oil and mining stocks into the red, with notable slides from Anglo American, BP and Shell.
Over in the Eurozone the DAX and CAC looked just as precarious. Despite hitting a 2016 peak on Monday the German index doesn’t seem to have the stamina to remain in the ascendancy, instead tumbling by more than 100 points as the day continued.
Anyone looking for a change in tone after the US open is likely going to be disappointed, with the Dow Jones set for a 75 point fall once the bell rings on Wall Street. The next-day reaction to Apple’s Q4 earnings – which were bad but slightly better than expected, and came with a fairly positive set of projections for the Christmas quarter – will help dictate the Dow this Wednesday, as will the flash services PMI, forecast to climb a tad higher from 52.3 to 52.4 month-on-month.
