London’s FTSE-100 has pushed back above the 7,000 level shortly after the open, with the vast majority of constituents pushing higher, although it’s the mining stocks leading the charge after yesterday’s sell-off for the sector.
The Tesco/Unilever spat that emerged earlier in the week has already been resolved with the supermarket the apparent victor. Its shares are up almost 2% this morning, whilst Unilever has found itself languishing at the foot of the index – there’s clearly an underlying problem here if suppliers are going to struggle to hike prices even where it is justified.
We‘ve got a relatively quiet few hours ahead in terms of the domestic economic calendar, with construction output data for August being the main event.
However there’s going to be a lot of attention on the other side of the Atlantic today, where retail sales figures will again help define the Fed’s likely stance over interest rate policy, whilst we also have the next round of the quarterly earnings season.
Citigroup and JP Morgan are both set to report and suggestions abound that the last few months haven’t been kind to the banking sector. With Alcoa having already disappointed and the shadow of a rate hike looming, more bad corporate news today could well serve to take the shine off markets globally before the weekend break.
