Blue chips in London outperformed European and US peers on Friday, but closed marginally lower, as oil prices rose once more amid few signs of progress in ending the Iran war.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe simple fact is that sentiment is likely to stay negative for as long as the Strait of Hormuz remains unsafe for shipping and controlled by Iran,\u201d commented David Morrison, senior market analyst at Trade Nation.<\/p>\n
The FTSE 100 closed down just 4.82 points at 9,967.35. The FTSE 250 ended down 331.32 points, 1.6%, at 20,964.75, and the AIM All-Share closed down 13.43 points, 1.9%, at 705.63.<\/p>\n
For the week, the FTSE 100 rose 0.5%, the FTSE 250 fell 1.8% and the AIM All-Share Index fell 1.7%.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, US President Donald Trump issued a 10-day extension on his deadline for Tehran to open the Strait of Hormuz or face the destruction of its energy assets.<\/p>\n
But with Iran maintaining a hold on the Straits, Mr Trump\u2019s announcement largely failed to lift the mood for markets.<\/p>\n
\u201cTraders are now discounting the daily torrent of posts and incoherent press conferences from the White House, as the war rages on,\u201d said Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB.<\/p>\n
\u201cInvestors are facing the facts: the Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed and it does not appear that there is a real end in sight to the war.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Trump has insisted Iran wanted \u201cto make a deal\u201d to end the war engulfing the region, but the Iranian side has indicated no let-up in reprisal attacks against Israel and targets across the Gulf.<\/p>\n
Kuwait said on Friday its main commercial port was damaged in a drone attack.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s Tasnim news agency said the country has responded to Washington\u2019s 15-point plan to end the war and was awaiting a reply.<\/p>\n
Reports also suggested the US is weighing up sending up to 10,000 additional troops to the Middle East, fuelling speculation that Washington may be preparing for a potential ground operation in Iran.<\/p>\n
The Wall Street Journal reported that the move would provide Mr Trump with \u201cmore military options\u201d.<\/p>\n
Amid the impasse, the oil price\u2019s upward trajectory resumed.<\/p>\n
Brent oil was higher at 111.63 US dollars a barrel on Friday afternoon, from 108.80 dollars late on Thursday.<\/p>\n
In European equities on Friday, the CAC 40 in Paris closed down 0.9%, while the DAX 40 in Frankfurt ended 1.4% lower.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump\u2019s 10-day Taco (Trump always chickens out) has had a less profound impact compared with Monday\u2019s five-day reprieve, with equities losing ground in Europe despite the president\u2019s decision to once again postpone strikes on key energy infrastructure. Instead, there is a real concern that we could see escalation through the use of boots on the ground,\u201d said Joshua Mahony at Scope Markets.<\/p>\n
Story continues <\/p>\n
Stocks in New York were lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.1%, the S&P 500 index was 1.0% lower, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.4%.<\/p>\n
The yield on the US 10-year Treasury widened to 4.42% on Friday from 4.40% on Thursday. The yield on the US 30-year Treasury stretched to 4.95% from 4.94%.<\/p>\n
The pound fell to 1.3288 US dollars on Friday afternoon from 1.3338 dollars at the equities close on Thursday. Against the euro, sterling fell to 1.1554 euros from 1.1563 euros a day prior.<\/p>\n
The euro stood lower against the greenback at 1.1521 dollars from 1.1534 dollars. Against the Japanese yen, the dollar was trading higher at 160.10 yen compared to 159.65 yen.<\/p>\n
Supporting the FTSE 100, AstraZeneca rose 3.4% after reporting positive phase three results for its chronic obstructive pulmonary disease treatment, tozorakimab.<\/p>\n
The company said the drug delivered \u201csignificant and highly clinically meaningful\u201d reductions in exacerbations in two replicate trials, Oberon and Titania.<\/p>\n
The Bank of America said the data was a \u201cpleasant surprise\u201d after failed trials at Roche and Sanofi for similar drugs.<\/p>\n
Cambridge-based AstraZeneca is the FTSE 100\u2019s most valuable company, worth about \u00a3223 billion.<\/p>\n
The firm sees peak sales for tozorakimab of 3-5 billion dollars, while the current Visible Alpha consensus is 1.2 billion dollars.<\/p>\n
3i rallied by 1.0%, after slumping 18% on Thursday amid disappointing like-for-like growth at its main investment, Dutch discount retailer Action.<\/p>\n
JPMorgan said lower guidance for flat margins and lower like-for-like sales at Action \u201cthan we were expecting, was disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, JPM said Action remains a \u201cleading compound growth story\u201d and \u201c3i now offers a cheap way in\u201d.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, the rising gold price boosted Fresnillo and Endeavour Mining, up 0.6% and 1.9% respectively.<\/p>\n
Gold rose to 4,517.90 dollars an ounce on Friday from 4,383.70 dollars at the same time on Thursday.<\/p>\n
NatWest rose 0.9% as Deutsche Bank raised its share price target to 840p from 730p.<\/p>\n
\u201cNatWest has unfairly derated in our view,\u201d analyst Robert Noble said.<\/p>\n
In the debit column, Metlen Energy was the biggest faller, down 8.6%.<\/p>\n
The Athens-based energy and metallurgy company said auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers have requested more time to complete work on its 2025 financial statements, its first as a dual-listed company in London and Athens.<\/p>\n
The group now expects to release results on April 9, a nine-day delay, and reiterated guidance for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of around \u00a3750 million.<\/p>\n
Housebuilders were once more under pressure. The Bank of America cut price targets by 20% across the sector and lowered pre-tax profit forecasts by 7% through 2026 to 2028, with sector earnings per share expectations now 6% below consensus.<\/p>\n
Barratt Redrow fell 4.7%, Persimmon 3.9% and Taylor Wimpey 1.7%.<\/p>\n
The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were: AstraZeneca, up 472.0p at 14,302.0p; Endeavour Mining, up 80.0p at 4,262.0p; Rio Tinto, up 115.0p at 6,545.0p; Reckitt Benckiser, up 90.0p at 5,164.0p; and Glencore, up 6.4p at 538.4p.<\/p>\n
The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were: Metlen Energy & Metals, down 3.0p at 31.75p; Barratt Redrow, down 12.6p at 255.7p; Babcock International, down 57.0p at 1,155.0p; Persimmon, down 43.0p at 1,075.0p; and Autotrader, down 17.5p at 447.3p.<\/p>\n
Monday\u2019s global economic calendar has UK mortgage approvals data at 7am BST. German and Italian inflation figures are also due, along with the Dallas Fed manufacturing index in the US.<\/p>\n
Monday\u2019s local corporate calendar has full-year results from Artisanal Spirits, Aoti and RTW Biotech.<\/p>\n
In Europe, daylight saving time starts on Sunday, and clocks go forward by one hour.<\/p>\n
Contributed by Alliance News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Blue chips in London outperformed European and US peers on Friday, but closed marginally lower, as oil prices…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[16980,38,2272,16575,34,15401,261,101],"class_list":{"0":"post-39096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran","8":"tag-david-morrison","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-ftse-100","11":"tag-ftse-250","12":"tag-iran","13":"tag-mr-trump","14":"tag-oil-prices","15":"tag-strait-of-hormuz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116302471741356239","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}