London's FTSE 100 headed lower as inflation rose sharply in October, though gains for the banks over the prospect of higher interest rates limited the damage.
London’s blue-chip index was down 4 at 7,322.
UK prices rose by 4.2% in October or the annual highest rate in almost 10 years as the cost of gas, electricity, petrol and second hand cars all climbed sharply. Economists suggested it might force the Bank of England to raise interest rates.
Elon Musk sold another chunk of his Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) (Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)) stock on Tuesday, taking his total sales to roughly US$8.8bn. According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk sold more than 934,000 shares on Tuesday, raising approximately US$973mln.
Experian (LSE:EXPN) (Experian (LSE:EXPN)) PLC lifted its guidance for the current financial year after posting a strong first-half performance boosted by “standout” growth in its consumer services business. The credit rating company said it now expects revenue for the financial year to end-March 2022 to show organic growth of 11%-13%.
Among the small caps, Corero Network , a specialist cybersecurity provider, said it has won contracts worth US$4mln in the hosting provider market segment. It secured orders from a major US cloud infrastructure hosting provider, an American hosting group with operations on both sides of the Atlantic and expansion business from a channel partner.
Bidstack, a native in-game advertising group, revealed its technology will be used in three new titles from Dovetail Games, a specialist in simulation games. The three titles are Train Simulator 2022, Train Sim World 2 and Bassmaster Fishing 2022.
Open Orphan has signed a £5.1mln contract with an unnamed biopharmaceutical company to test a potential new medicine for respiratory syncytial virus using its human challenge study model. While the evaluation will begin in the second half of next year, revenue from the deal will be recognised this year and 2022.