The week ahead is going to be all about central banks, with Wednesday’s US interest rate call by the Federal Reserve likely to remain centre stage in the coming days. The chances of a rate hike do appear to be fading and this is providing some valuable support for equities both in London and further afield.
The FTSE-100 is awash with blue ink and has already jumped by around 1% – Glencore is topping the board helped by a broker upgrade, but other big mining plays are also finding favour, with the sector being a likely winner if there’s no action to strengthen the US dollar by Janet Yellen.
At the foot of the index, Capita is languishing with this looking like read-across from smaller peer MITIE acting as something of a drag here, where a profit warning has knocked 25% off the company’s valuation – that’s not a great start to the week by any stretch.
There’s limited economic data on the agenda today although the implications of just how Brexit may look does seem to be taking something of a toll on the Pound. Unfortunately it seems as if there’s an awful lot of political grandstanding to be done here and as a result, the uncertainty that’s dogging markets will persist for some considerable time yet.
