With the majority of its oil and mining stocks in the red the FTSE struggled for momentum this Black Friday.
The UK index has trickled around 0.1% lower, a 1% decline from Brent Crude (which now sits under $48.50 per barrel) dragging with it BP and Shell. The pound, meanwhile, managed to recover from its early losses against the dollar to climb back to $1.245; it didn’t have as much luck against the embattled euro, where it continued to trade around 0.4% lower. It seems that investors took the UK’s latest GDP reading in their stride, unfussed by further confirmation that the country grew by 0.5% in the third quarter.
Over in the Eurozone the euro strived to avoid parity with the dollar, taking nearly half a percent off the greenback to lift back towards $1.06. The region’s indices were less energetic this morning, both the DAX and CAC dipping 0.1% lower as the day went on.
Things could perk up a bit this afternoon, with the Dow Jones likely on track to hit another all-time peak at some point during the session. Freshly stuffed following Thanksgiving, the futures are suggesting the US index will cross the 19100 mark after the bell, a remarkable feat not only because it follows the shocking US election result, but because it comes around 3 weeks before an increasingly certain rate hike from the Federal Reserve.
