London’s blue-chip stocks were pretty flat by the end of the day, with sellers seemingly having the upper hand.
This morning, the European Central Bank's (ECB) October Bank Lending Survey (BLS) revealed a slight loosening of credit conditions for firms and stronger demand for loans.
Meanwhile, “German factory-gate inflation figures got filed in the ‘more ECB stimulus’ needed column,” according to Chris Beauchamp at IG.
In Europe, the Germany's Dax fell 18 points to 10,146 and France's Cac-40 was 34 points off to 4,670.
In the UK, the FTSE100 ended just 11 points lower to 6,341.
“It is difficult to discern much of a general theme to today’s action in London, but decent results from Intercontinental Hotels and Whitbread have been rewarded, helping to prevent further losses in the index,” Beauchamp said.
Costa Coffee and Premier Inn owner Whitbread (LON:WTB) rose 157p to 4,882p as first-half profits rose and it vowed to create 15,000 jobs within five years.
Meanwhile, Holiday Inn-owner Intercontinental Hotels Group (LON:IHG) gained, 159p, around 6.9%, to 2,470p as it reported that sales in Europe were booming, with third-quarter revenue per available room rising some 10% across continental Europe, and 7.8% in the UK.
Conversely, Tesco (LON:TSCO) dropped more than 2.2% to 189p as data from Kantar Worldpanel showed the company lost 0.8% of its market share in the 12 weeks to October 11 compared to the year before as it saw sales fall 1.7% over the period.
Over in the US, like the UK, Wall Street was mostly flat in early deals, with corporate earnings for the third quarter being the main focus for investors.
The Dow Jones climbed around 30 points, 0.16%, to 17,258 while the S&P 500 added 4.5 points, 0.22%, to 2,038 and the Nasdaq was dead even at 4,905.
Back in the UK, Online fashion firm ASOS (LON:ASC) said its international sales growth picked up in the financial year just ended as price cuts began to take effect. Shares ticked up 177p to 3,105p.
Sticking in the small cap space, Shanta Gold (LON:SHG) jumped 24% to 7p as the firm produced a record amount of gold from its New Luika mine in Tanzania in its latest quarter with costs also sharply lower.
Staying in the mining sector, SolGold (LON:SOLG) revealed the highest grade assay results to date at the Cascabel copper-gold project in Ecuador.
Drilling at CSD-15-012, Hole 12, showed intersects of up to 1.75% copper. Shares leapt 11.8% to 2.1p.
Elsewhere, Minoan (LON:MIN) said, following the latest round of Greek elections, the country is more stable than it has been recently.
It also noted that its project in Crete was unanimously approved by the Plenum of the Greek Council of State and all that remains for its final approval is for it to be endorsed by the Government. Shares gained 20.3% to 8.8p.
Conversely, Rurelec (LON:RUR) lost 46% to 0.6p as Sterling Trust, which holds 303mln shares, equating to around 53% of the company, was placed in administration yesterday.