Good morning from London where the FTSE 100 has started the week on the back foot, opening lower after another lacklustre trading sessions in China overnight.
The London index is sensitive to overseas demand for energy and commodities, and government data from Beijing shows that manufacturing activity in the world’s no.1 workshop remains in contraction. Here in the UK though Rolls-Royce are in the top three gainers in terms of share price, up several percent with investors seeming to buy plans announced at a recent capital markets day to boost margins and make disposals of up to £1.5 billion. JD Sports and Ocado round out the top three.
The bottom end of the table today is almost entirely made up of energy and commodity companies as you’d expect, but there is at least one energy company bucking the trend. AIM listed AFC Energy have announced this morning that their new modular ammonia cracker is now up and running and attracting keen interest from some major European players.
I interviewed CEO Adam Bond about it this very morning, so make sure to give that a watch and make sure you have a great week.