The FTSE 100 (^FTSE) was flat and European stocks rose in early trade on Tuesday morning as figures suggested that spending for Black Friday sales cooled this year.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) blamed wet weather and pre-budget jitters for declining footfall, which fell by 0.8% in November year-on-year, down from a 0.7% decline in October. November was the seventh consecutive month of declining footfall, the trade body said.

“Storm Claudia prompted many consumers to search online for Black Friday deals throughout November, leading some to not visit bricks-and-mortar stores on Black Friday,” said Helen Dickinson, BRC CEO.

Data from Barclays (BARC.L) also suggested a dip in spending. Barclays said card spending fell 1.1% year-on-year in November – the largest decline since February 2021.

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  • Unilever (ULVR.L) led the charge for a flat FTSE, up more than 12% in early trade as ice cream company Magnum completed its stock market spinoff.

  • Over in Germany, the DAX (^GDAXI) rose 0.6%.

  • Paris’s CAC 40 (^FCHI) gained 0.3%.

  • The pan-European STOXX 600 (^STOXX) rose 0.3%.

  • The pound ticked up almost 0.2% against the dollar (GBPUSD=X) to trade above the $1.33 mark.

LIVE 4 updates

  • FTSE 100 risers and fallers
  • Here’s the US stock futures chart
  • US stock futures edge into the green

    Our US team writes:

    US stock futures edged higher Tuesday morning after President Donald Trump signed off on a deal allowing Nvidia (NVDA) to resume shipments of its H200 AI chips to China, in a week that also sees a highly anticipated meeting of the Fed over an expected interest rate-cut.

    Dow Jones Industrial Average futures (YM=F) were little changed, while S&P 500 futures (ES=F) ticked up 0.1%. Nasdaq 100 futures (NQ=F) hovered above the baseline after the indexes notched modest losses on Monday to break string of recent gains.

    Nvidia (NVDA) shares rose over 2% in extended trading after Trump said on Truth Social that the company can sell H200 chips to “approved customers” in China and other regions, provided that 25% of the sales value is paid to the US government. Trump added that Chinese President Xi Jinping “responded positively” to the arrangement in a move that adds some security to Nvidia’s China business after months of trade-policy uncertainty.

  • Good morning!

    Hello from London. Lucy Harley-McKeown here — ready to bring you the business and finance headlines of the day.

    On the calendar today we have:

    • British Retail Consortium’s UK retail sales monitor

    • Bank of England mortgage statistics, at 9.30am

    • US NFIB smaller companies survey

    • US ADP payrolls survey

    • US Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS)

    Earnings:

    British American Tobacco (BATS.L) and Oxford Metrics (OMG.L), Ashtead (AT.L), Moonpig (MOON.L) and Naked Wines (WINE.L)

    Let’s get to it.

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