London’s FTSE-100 is trying to push higher in early trade as the pound takes another blow, but the bulls appear wary of pushing valuations much higher than they are already.
By Tony Cross, Monk Communications, 6th October 2016
We do have a handful of stocks trading lower on the day although many of the losses here are being driven by dividend payouts, with pressure on Smith & Nephew who also went ex-div earlier being compounded by a broker downgrade. Airline stocks are also in focus – as was widely expected, easyJet has given a rather bleak outlook for the year as Brexit and security fears hit traffic. IAG is also suffering from a degree of read across here, too.
RBS is finding some much needed love with the shares topping the board as management talk of potentially making some selective acquisitions and this seems to be helping the wider banking sector, whilst Croda is also finding favour.
We have a realtively quiet day ahead in terms of economic data – that non-farm payroll figure for tomorrow remains the key number that many will be watching for, although with the outcome of this seemingly being that we’ll have an inevitable rate hike from the Fed by Christmas, again the direction off this number may still be limited once it is released.
