London’s blue-chip shares failed to pare early losses despite small gains in the US markets.
The Dow Jones average gained 27 points to stand at 17,783 while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite were both 0.1% higher, with the former at 2,091 and the latter 5,080.
With investors now unsure whether the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this year, personal consumption expenditure, the Fed’s preferred measurement of inflation, came in as expected, around 1.3% year on year.
Connor Campbell at Spreadex said: “As the US open came and went the markets maintained their commitment to ending what has been a surprisingly stellar October in the dullest way possible.”
The slightly positive start across the pond couldn’t boost the FTSE100, which ended the day more than 50 points lower at 6,342.
The Royal Bank of Scotland (LON:RBS) rounded off a week of UK bank figures and were it not for the £1.1bn cash injection from the sale of its Citizens bank operation in the US, it would make for particularly gloomy reading, Alastair McCaig at IG said.
Barclays (LON:BARC) and Lloyds (LON:LLOY) had already underwhelmed this week and RBS matched its rivals with an operating loss of £134mln which became a profit of £2mln after a debt adjustment. Shares lost around 1% to 317p.
It wasn’t the biggest faller on the index though. That honour went to British Airways owner International Consolidated Airlines (LON:IAG), despite solid third quarter figures.
Analysts had been expecting strong results from the airline group and shares fell 2.5% or 15p to 571p in early trading in London.
In the mid cap space, Pets at Home (LON:PETS) dropped after the pet food and products retailed said trading in certain parts of the business were weaker than expected. Shares were down 7.3% to 288p.
Conversely, speciality pharma group Vectura (LON:VEC) announced it has received a €750,000mln payment after reaching a development milestone for the VR632 asthma therapy inhaler.
The airways-related disease expert will also receive sales royalties from the product. Shares climbed 6.6% to 174p.
In the small cap arena, Rurelec (LON:RUR) more than doubled after announcing it was at an advanced stage in talks to arrange a short-term loan of £600,000 to give it time to find long-term funding.
In a similar vein Clear Leisure (LON:CLP) jumped 12% to 0.7p after it said tt has entered into a £200,000 loan agreement with Eufingest S.A, a Swiss investor and major shareholder in the company.
On the other side of the coin, recruitment firm Nakama (LON:NAK) lost 27% to 3.8p. First half pre-tax profit dropped to £169,000 from £220,000 the year before on lower revenue as it was hit by currency headwinds.