- FTSE 100 drops 16 points
- Trading volumes reduced due to holidays
- Retail sector job cuts climb
- Pub closures
10.57am: House prices fall in London, up in Slough, Midlands and the North
London boroughs generally saw the lowest house price growth this past year, research from lender Halifax has shown, with most of the biggest rises coming north of the Watford Gap, in places such as Stoke-on-Trent, Oldham and Bradford, of between 17% and 13%
Halifax, part of Lloyds Banking Group PLC, found that the Yorkshire and Humber region saw the strongest house price increases in England, at 6.4%, followed closely by the West Midlands, at 6.3%.
Meanwhile, the south-east of England had the smallest percentage growth in average house prices in the 12 months to September, of 1.8%.
The boroughs of Ealing, Southwark, Enfield, Harrow and Westminster were among the 10 worst areas, while in Greater London and the southeast areas the likes of Bromley, Kingston Upon Thames, Aylesbury and Slough were also found in the list, all with house prices falling on average in the period.
There were notable regional exceptions though, as Huddersfield and The Wirral saw the biggest falls in average house prices, down 6.6% and 5.4% respectively.
Huddersfield topped the house price growth table in 2023 with an increase of 8.7%, but over two years prices in the area have risen slightly.
Slough, just west of London and now connected to the Elizabeth Line, saw a rise of 14.9% in the cost of a home, with Halifax research finding that it was a popular area for first-time buyers, with 73% of purchases made by those taking their first steps on the property ladder.
10.30am: AI company joins AIM
A British tech company has made its debut on the London stock market today: welcome Priority Intelligence Group PLC.
But, today, interested investors will need to look for Alteration Earth PLC before it changes its name.
A special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), Alteration recently completed the reverse takeover of Pri0r1ty AI Ltd, which provides AI-powered SaaS solutions to SMEs such as social media, investor relations and governance.
After raising shy of £1 million, at 13.5p, the firm comes to AIM with a market capitalisation of £13 million.
Daniel Gee, Pri0r1ty AI founder and major shareholder (and a former stock broker), had some warm words for AIM and the City of London too, saying “too many early-stage British tech companies think that the only route to growth is through VC funding, or even moving abroad”.
9.50am: Further US retreat expected, Boeing to drop sharply
An early look across the Atlantic shows futures are pointing to another session of falls for Wall Street.
S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures are both pointing to a decline of around 0.3%.
Boeing Co (NYSE:BA, ETR:BCO) shares are set to fall 4.5% too, following the South Korea crash yesterday.
9.16am: Small-cap deals
The company news this morning is strictly from small-cap names, with no announcements of note from any of the FTSE 350.
E-commerce company Huddled Group PLC (AIM:HUD) has bought out the final 25% of Boop Beauty that it did not already own, paying the platform’s founder, Yasmine Amr, 3.25 million shares to cover the £100,000 payment.
“The board of Huddled has been encouraged by Boop Beauty’s trading thus far and feel full ownership better justifies the allocation of additional resources to the business in order to fuel its continued growth,” the company said in an announcement this morning.
Amr, a former in-house counsel at L’Oreal, founded Boop in 2023 as a circular economy e-commerce business, specialising in selling excess inventory from luxury beauty brands directly to consumers, helping reduce waste in the industry.
Huddled said purchasing 100% of the business would accelerate Boop’s “growth trajectory” as it could now justify upping investments in inventory and marketing initiatives and also allow Amr “to stay actively engaged” as a non-executive director of Boop.
In another AIM acquisition, HeLIX Exploration PLC (AIM:HEX) says it snapped up a helium processing plant for $500,000.
It says the plant has proven capability, having previously produced 48,000 Mcf of high-grade helium a year, with a 98.5% uptime.
The deal aims to accelerate production at Helix’s Rudyard Project in Montana while reducing capital expenditure.
8.41am: Trade war warning
If Donald Trump hikes tariffs after re-entering the White House, China could look to ship masses of cheap goods and “export deflation” to Europe, a European Central Bank governing council member has stated this morning.
Klaas Knot told Dutch newspaper Volkskrant that if the US starts a trade war, “there is a chance that the Chinese will start offering their goods in Europe at lower and lower prices”.
Having made a recent trip to China, Knot said there is “a serious chance of a trade war” and it would be “extremely negative for the global economy, particularly for growth but also for inflation” …read more
8.12am: FTSE flops in early trading
The FTSE 100 has dropped 30 points or 0.4% to 8,118 in initial trades, with all but 10 of the index starting the day in red.
Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC (LSE:RR.) is the biggest faller this morning, possibly in connection to the Korean air crash yesterday, which could lead to further problems for Boeing and its suppliers.
Among the few risers are housebuilders Barratt Redrow and Berkeley Group.
7.58am: Retail sector job cuts
Some gloomy data for retail sector workers as companies are expected to continue trying to work with as few humans as possible.
A total of 169,395 retail jobs were lost in the 2024 calendar year, up 42% compared to last year and the worst year since 2020.
This is according to a report from the Centre for Retail Research (CRR) and Altus Group (TSX:AIF) released yesterday, which forecasts next year could be even worse due to the recent Budget changes.
A third of the high street job losses in 2024 resulted from administrations, including Carpetright, Body Shop, Homebase, Lloyds Pharmacy and Ted Baker.
Looking forward, the report suggested 2025 could remain challenging for the high street because of recent tax and wage measures in the Budget, as well as a less generous discount to business rates.
Altus also recorded a further fall in the number of pubs around the country.
The decline in the number of pubs in England and Wales accelerated in 2024, research found, with the past 12 months seeing 412 pubs shuttered, either totally demolished or converted into flats or other uses.
That meant the number of pubs fell below 39,000 for the first time, to 38,989 to be precise.
Pub and bar owners have been vocal in recent months about rising costs, though looking back at previous sector news, this was also the case for most of the previous years too.
7.28am: Market rebalancing ahead of the new year?
Last week finished with a small gain for the FTSE, but a big tumble for US stocks.
This all but dashed the possibility of finishing the year at record highs, says Kyle Rodda, market analyst at Capital.com, though the S&P 500 has still gained around 25% on a nominal basis for the year.
“Diluting the optimism is the fear that after two successive years of similar performance, valuations are too rich and positioning too stretched, despite a strong outlook for fundamentals going into 2025, with that sentiment driving part of Friday’s pullback.”
Friday’s US retreat was caused by a jump in bond yields, says Rodda, “amidst persistent fears of a material re-rating in bonds to reflect strong growth, a significant fiscal impulse from the Trump administration and, tangentially, fewer Fed cuts next year”.
Trading volumes were robust on Friday, which he notes defied the generally sleepy nature of trade this time of the year.
“It perhaps indicates a high level of churn in US equities, particularly tech stocks, which is an amber signal of a market cutting exposure and rebalancing going into the new year.”
For today and the week ahead the macro and other economic events are thin on the ground, though end-of-year flows are “potentially” a driver of prices across financial markets, he says.
“Chinese PMI data will be released today and could shake things up, given the down risk seen in the country’s growth data and asset prices recently. The US ISM print on Friday will also be closely watched and will present a volatility risk given the nervous balance between growth concerns and inflation risks in the US.”
7.16am: FTSE 100 to open sharply lower
The FTSE 100 is expected to fall sharply when trading begins on Monday, with low trading volumes being seen on the penultimate day of the year.
London’s blue-chip index has been called 26 points lower on futures markets, having inched slightly higher last week to 8,149.78.
Asian markets are mixed this morning, with Japan’s Nikkei down 1% and Korea’s Kospi falling 0.2%, with JejuAir plunging around 9% earlier following the deadly crash over the weekend, but elsewhere Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is just above flat and the Shanghai Composite is up 0.2%.
Trading volumes for Asia and Australia stock markets were low, said market analyst Ipek Ozkardeskaya at Swissquote Bank.
Is Tokyo, she noted that Bloomberg data showed trading volumes were nearly 20% lower and 55% lower for their Australian peers.
“Futures point at an unappetizing start for the last Monday of the year both in Europe and in the US, and the price moves could be exaggerated with low trading volumes,” she says.