- FTSE 100 ends 29.81 lower at 10,720.30
- US makes quiet start
- Miners recover ground
- AZ resilient
4.40pm: That's a wrap, folks
The FTSE 100 ended an insipid session just off its session low at 10,720.30, down 29.81 points. Leading the decline were the standard defensive stocks - Sainsbury, Tesco and Diageo, which smacks of a rotation play. The miners, after a sharp sell-off last week, offered a partial counterbalance.
3.08pm: London treads water as Wall Street opens mixed
The FTSE 100 was hovering around flat mid-afternoon, taking little direction from a muted opening on Wall Street.
Across the Atlantic, US stocks were mixed, with the Dow down 0.3% and the S&P 500 off 0.1% after its third straight weekly gain, while the Nasdaq Composite edged fractionally higher.
The focus this week falls on retail earnings, with Walmart, Target, Lowe's and Home Depot all reporting during the key back-to-school season.
Traders have trimmed the odds of a September rate hike at the Fed's Jackson Hole meeting to less than a third.
Oil, meanwhile, remains in view, with Brent crude nudging up to $88 a barrel.
1.53pm: Plus500 too cheap?
Plus500, the financial technology group, has been upgraded to buy from hold by Cavendish, which reckons a 25% slide since July's trading update has left the shares undervalued.
The broker trimmed its target price to 4,490p from 4,685p, still implying around 21% upside from 3,714p. The shares rose 1.2% to 3,836p.
Cavendish notes the weakness came despite a strong first half and management sticking to its full-year guidance.
At around 12.6 times estimated 2026 earnings, the broker argues the valuation fails to reflect Plus500's push beyond its traditional over-the-counter business.
Its US arm is a bright spot, with non-OTC revenue up roughly 30% year on year to $70 million.
12.53pm: Wall Street set to mark time
London's blue-chip index is off to a bright start, with the FTSE 100 up 23 points at 10,765 in early afternoon trade.
The mood is cautiously upbeat, even as investors keep one eye on the Federal Reserve and another on a heavy slate of US retail earnings.
Across the Atlantic, futures are treading water, with Dow futures down 0.2%, the S&P 500 up 0.1% after a third straight weekly gain, and the Nasdaq-100 adding 0.5%.
It's a lighter week for economic data, so America's big-box stores take centre stage.
Walmart, Target, Lowe's and Home Depot all report, offering a read on how the US shopper is holding up as the back-to-school rush begins.
Closer to home, the Fed still looms large over sentiment.
Traders have trimmed the odds of a September rate hike at this week's Jackson Hole gathering to less than a third, with inflation and jobs figures painting a muddled picture.
Oil remains a nagging worry, with Brent crude ticking up to $89 a barrel as the Middle East conflict rumbles on.
Bond markets are restless too, with 10 and 30-year Treasury yields both up 5 basis points on Friday. Wednesday's Fed minutes could offer fresh clues.
10.55am: Drugmaker misses
AstraZeneca shares proved resilient in the face of disappointing trial news, rising 0.8% by mid-morning despite the drugmaker halting a late-stage lung cancer study.
The FTSE 100 group said its Volrustomig drug, combined with chemotherapy, was unlikely to improve survival against existing treatments, prompting it to stop the phase three trial.
The muted reaction looks a little odd given the setback lands barely a month after AstraZeneca abandoned a trial of its heart disease drug Wainua, which wiped billions off its value.
Investors may have taken comfort from offsetting good news on the same day.
The company said its Enhertu treatment had shown a meaningful improvement in delaying disease progression in non-small cell lung cancer, and would advance to phase three.
Separately, late-stage results for Tagrisso combined with Orpathys reinforced Tagrisso's role as a backbone lung cancer therapy, leaving the balance of Monday's newsflow more mixed than the failed trial alone suggested.
9.30am: House sellers slash asking prices as buyers hold the whip hand
Homeowners in Britain's wealthiest borough have cut asking prices by nearly £100,000 in a single month, as bargain-hunting landlords press their advantage.
Sellers in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea trimmed their average asking price from £1,648,148 to £1,552,970 over the past month.
The move is part of a broader retreat, with newly listed asking prices across Britain falling 2% in August, the steepest monthly drop in eight years.
That national decline of £7,360 masks a sharper 4.4% fall in London, where the number of homes for sale has hit a 16-year high.
Buy-to-let investors, who made up 14.1% of purchases in July, are seizing the moment.
More than half of their offers came in at least 10% below asking, the highest share since the first pandemic lockdown.
Sellers, increasingly cornered, accepted 27% of those lowball bids.
Leasehold flats are proving hardest to shift.
8.30am: Blue-chips in the green
UK blue-chips opened their account in the green on Monday, with mining stocks, heavily sold off last week, reversing some of their losses. Antofagasta, which warned on production, led the charge, adding around 2% in the first half hour of trading.
Corporate news was at a premium, with the only notable news of the day coming in the form of a clinical trial update from AstraZeneca, which had positive news on its cancer drug Tagrisso.
Ahead of the open
Good morning. The FTSE 100 is poised to open around 23 points higher, taking its cue from a mostly buoyant session across Asia.
Regional technology shares led the way, buoyed by fading expectations of an imminent Federal Reserve rate hike.
Soft US retail sales, down 0.6% in July, have trimmed the odds of a September move to roughly one in four, from about 50% a week ago.
Chip stocks did much of the heavy lifting. Hong Kong's Hang Seng climbed 1.8%, while Japan's Nikkei shrugged off weaker-than-expected growth figures to move further into record territory.
Oil, meanwhile, remains a worry, with tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz still largely halted and President Trump warning Americans to brace for pricier petrol.
