FTSE 100 dips while markets watch for US-China talks progress
Stocks in London closed mixed on Monday amid a fresh burst of mid-and-small cap M&A (mergers and acquisitions) activity, while the wider market watched as US- China trade talks resumed.
The FTSE 100 index fell 5.63 points, 0.1%, at 8,832.28. The FTSE 250 ended up 128.63 points, 0.6%, at 21,285.91, and the AIM All-Share climbed 7.01 points, 0.9%, at 763.89.
In Paris, the Cac 40 fell 0.2%, while Frankfurt's Dax 40 ended 0.5% lower.
The pound was quoted at 1.36 dollars late on Monday afternoon in London, higher compared to 1.35 at the close on Friday. The euro stood at 1.142 dollars, higher against 1.139 on Friday.
On London's FTSE 250, Spectris leapt 64% after receiving a more than £3.7 billion cash and shares bid from private equity firm Advent International LP.
Should a firm offer be made, 'the board has carefully considered the proposal together with its advisers and concluded that the proposal is at a value that the board would be minded to recommend unanimously to Spectris shareholders', said Spectris.
Meanwhile, Alphawave IP soared 19% as it agreed to a 2.4 billion dollars takeover from US semiconductor firm Qualcomm.
The cash deal values the London-listed high-speed connectivity solutions firm's shares at 2.48 dollars each, or around 183 pence.
'Qualcomm's acquisition of Alphawave represents a significant milestone for us and an opportunity for our business to join forces with a respected industry leader and drive value to our customers,' said Alphawave chief executive Officer Tony Pialis.
Charles Hall at Peel Hunt noted there have been 30 bids for UK companies at more than £100 million market value year-to-date, with a total value of £25 billion.
At the same time there has been just one initial public offer offer year-to-date of more than £100 million, he pointed out.
'Companies in the UK seem to be far more attractive to acquirers than investors. The root cause is the consistent outflow of capital from domestic markets. If we want the UK equity market to thrive, an urgent rethink is required to ensure that UK capital backs UK companies,' Mr Hall said.
'The scale of M&A and lack of IPOs is resulting in a material reduction in the number of UK listed growth companies. It is essential that action is taken to ensure the health of the ecosystem and enable companies to grow, scale and stay in the UK. We believe this can be done through reform of pension funds, ISAs, and stamp duty,' Mr Hall added.
In New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.2%, the S&P 500 climbed 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite sat 0.3% higher at the time of the closing bell in London.
After a round of talks in Geneva last month, the US and China will sit down at the negotiating table in London on Monday to attempt to preserve a fragile truce on trade, despite simmering tensions.
US treasury secretary Scott Bessent, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and trade representative Jamieson Greer will lead the US delegation, President Donald Trump announced Friday.
Chinese vice premier He Lifeng – who led Beijing's negotiating team in Geneva – will also lead the team in London, the foreign ministry announced at the weekend.
On the FTSE 100, M&G rose 3.2% as UBS upgraded to 'buy', but WPP fell 2.8% after it said Mark Read will step down as chief executive officer at the end of 2025 after seven years leading the company.
Mr Read has spent more than 30 years at the company and took on the role of CEO in September 2018, following the abrupt departure of founder Martin Sorrell.
In London, shares in Cordel plunged 12% after it warned full-year revenue will be lower than forecast.
The London-based company, which uses artificial intelligence to supply transport corridor analytics, expects to report revenue in the range of £4.7 million and £5.0 million for the financial year to June 30. It would represent growth of up to 12% from £4.4 million a year prior.
But chief executive John Davis said it will be 'lower than forecast', despite the firm making 'excellent strategic progress' in the financial year.
Broker Cavendish lowered its financial 2025 revenue forecast to £4.8 million from £6.2 million.
Mr Davis said economic uncertainty, particularly in the US, has 'unfortunately led to protracted sales cycles and delayed revenue, which has impacted our normally strong second half revenue'.
Elsewhere, Dunelm fell 3.9% after RBC Capital Markets downgraded to 'sector perform' from 'outperform'.
'We view Dunelm as a high quality business. It's cash generative, has executed well in recent years and expansion potential has stepped up. But we think this is now more reflected in its valuation,' the broker said in a research note.
Meanwhile, Trustpilot slid 5.8% as Panmure Liberum slapped a 'sell' rating on the company.
Analyst Sean Kealey thinks Trustpilot finds itself 'at the foothills of a complex multi-year' business transition.
He argued that the current valuation assumes 'perfect execution' over a 'multi-decade time horizon despite near-term macro risks and medium-term business profile uncertainty.'
The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were Melrose Industries, up 16.80 pence at 484.60p, Spirax, up 190.00p at 5,940.00p, M&G, up 7.40p at 251.20p, JD Sports Fashion, up 2.04p at 82.60p, and Fresnillo, up 32.00p at 1,374.00p.
The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were WPP, down 15.40p at 543.40p, Hiscox, down 33.00p at 1,318.00p, Aviva, down 11.80p at 615.00p, Marks & Spencer, down 6.90p at 359.80p and Haleon, down 7.40p at 397.80p.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
23 minutes ago
- Times
Fact check: Labour claims the economy is ‘in a better place'
Labour has justified its U-turn on winter fuel payments by claiming the economy 'is in a better place' and the public finances are on a 'stronger footing', according to James Murray, a Treasury minister. Is he correct? The main statistic backing the government's claim that the economy has turned a corner is the most recent set of official growth figures. Gross domestic product — a broad measure of the size of the economy — expanded by 0.7 per cent in the first three months of the year, exceeding forecasts of about 0.4 per cent and the fastest acceleration in 12 months. It also meant the UK was the fastest-growing economy in the G7 at the start of 2025. Although the growth momentum is expected to peter out over the course of the year, the strong first quarter has led City forecasters and the International Monetary Fund to modestly upgrade their annual growth forecast from 1 per cent to about 1.1-1.2 per cent. The economy expanded by 1.1 per cent last year, so growth is likely to at least match, rather than far outstrip last year's performance. Labour will also take comfort in an improvement in the UK's GDP per capita figures, which is a more accurate measure of living standards. Growth divided by the population rose by 0.5 per cent in the first quarter, after contracting for two consecutive quarters prior. One of the most important economic indicators for living standards and the sustainability of the public finances is productivity growth. This is a broad measure that combines the efficiency of worker output and investment across the economy. The UK's dismal productivity performance since the global financial crisis hasn't turned around since Labour won the election. Productivity was 0.2 per cent lower in the first quarter of the year compared with the same period in 2024. Productivity in the private sector also contracted by a surprising 0.7 per cent last year, pushing it to below pre-pandemic levels and nearly 2 per cent lower than before the financial crisis in 2008. In the public sector, productivity has contracted for the past two years. Along with productivity growth, lifting business investment will be decisive in defining the government's economic record in this parliament. Private sector investment enjoyed a strong start to the year, expanding by 5.9 per cent in the first quarter compared with the end of 2024, and is 8.1 per cent stronger compared with a year ago. However, the figures are likely to have been distorted by a sharp rise in manufacturing investment, as companies rushed to stockpile materials before President Trump's tariffs announcement on April 2. Public and private sector investment is vital to raise innovation, create jobs and ultimately boost productivity. The UK's total rate of investment has been the worst in the G7 for 24 out of the past 30 years, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research. After more than a year of steadily falling inflation, the pace of price rises has started accelerating again this spring. Annual consumer price inflation rose to 3.4 per cent in April, dragged higher by energy and utility costs. The Bank of England does not expect inflation to fall back to its 2 per cent target until the end of next year. Figures released on Tuesday showed that the labour market is in the grip of a pronounced slowdown. Unemployment has hit a four-year high of 4.6 per cent, and the number of payrolled employees contracted by 55,000 in the three months to April. A first estimate for May showed a 109,000 decline in jobs, which if confirmed would be the worst month since the height of the pandemic in April 2022. Labour has been handed some mixed news on the state of the public finances. The Office for National Statistics lowered its borrowing estimate for the last fiscal year by £3.7 billion to £148.3 billion ending in March 2025, but this figure still overshot the £137.3 billion forecast made by the government's independent fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility. Monthly borrowing data has also consistently come in above forecasts as the government's coffers have suffered from lower-than-expected tax revenues. On the expenditure side, spending on public sector pay deals and welfare has been growing too fast for comfort for the chancellor. Financial market conditions have also turned against the government this year. Investors have driven up the UK's borrowing costs, as reflected by yields on sovereign debt. Since Rachel Reeves's spring statement in late March, higher gilt yields have blown a £5 billion hole in the chancellor's £9.9 billion buffer to meet her main fiscal rule. Labour's difficulty in balancing the books over the course of the parliament has stoked speculation that Reeves will be forced into more tax rises or spending cuts at her autumn budget.
Reuters
24 minutes ago
- Reuters
France's Mistral launches Europe's first AI reasoning model
PARIS, June 10 (Reuters) - Mistral on Tuesday launched Europe's first AI reasoning model, which uses logical thinking to create a response, as it tries to keep pace with American and Chinese rivals at the forefront of AI development. The French startup has attempted to differentiate itself by championing its European roots, winning the support of French President Emmanuel Macron, as well as making some of its models open source in contrast to the proprietary offerings of OpenAI or Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google. Mistral is considered Europe's best shot at having a home-grown AI competitor, but has lagged behind in terms of market share and revenue. Reasoning models use chain-of-thought techniques - a process that generates answers with intermediate reasoning abilities when solving complex problems. They could also be a promising path forward in advancing AI's capabilities as the traditional approach of building ever-bigger large language models by adding more data and computing power begins to hit limitations. For Mistral, which was valued by venture capitalists at $6.2 billion, an industry shift away from "scaling up" could give it a window to catch up against better capitalized rivals. China's DeepSeek broke through as a viable competitor in January through its low-cost, open-sourced AI models, including one for reasoning. OpenAI was the first to launch its reasoning models last year, followed by Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab a few months later. Meta (META.O), opens new tab, which also offers its models open-sourced, has not yet released a standalone reasoning model, though it said its latest top-shelf model has reasoning capabilities. Mistral is launching an open-sourced Magistral Small model and a more powerful version called Magistral Medium for business customers. "The best human thinking isn't linear - it weaves through logic, insight, uncertainty, and discovery. Reasoning language models have enabled us to augment and delegate complex thinking and deep understanding to AI," Mistral said. American companies have mostly kept their most advanced models proprietary, though a handful, such as Meta, has released open-source models. In contrast, Chinese firms ranging from DeepSeek to Alibaba have taken the open-source path to demonstrate their technological capabilities. Mistral Small is available for download on Hugging Face's platform and can reason in languages including English, French, Spanish, Arabic and simplified Chinese.
Telegraph
27 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Revealed: The spiralling cost of housing foreigners
Foreign-born heads of households in London cost Britain around £3.6 billion a year in discounted rent, Telegraph analysis suggests. Nearly half of all social housing in the capital, 48 per cent, is occupied by foreign-born heads of household, data from the 2021 census shows. This is well over the national average of 19 per cent. These households benefit from cheap rents which, when compared to private rent in London, average out at a discount of around £11,600 per year per household. Responding to the figures, Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, said: 'This research shows how the huge costs of mass, low-skilled migration are often hidden from the public. When you lift up the bonnet, it's clear that the level and composition of immigration have been hugely economically harmful for decades'. The figures also show some 35 per cent of working age foreign-born heads of households in London's social housing are either unemployed or economically inactive, despite living in one of the UK's most prosperous regions. The most recent ONS figures show that output per hour worked in the capital is approximately 26 per cent higher than the UK average. The figures cast further doubt on the UK's migration policies. Last year, the Office for Budget Responsibility found that low-paid migrant workers were costing taxpayers more than £150,000 each by the time they hit state pension age The proportion of social housing allocated to foreign-born lead residents varies drastically across the capital. A majority of social housing is occupied by a foreign-born lead tenant in 14 of the city's 32 boroughs, with only 10 areas in the capital falling below the level of 40 per cent. Over 60 per cent of social housing in Brent and Westminster is allocated to foreign-born lead residents but this drops to 16 per cent in Havering. To come to the figure of £3.6 billion, The Telegraph matched rents for London's 'general needs' social housing stock across local authority and private registered providers with median private sector rents for properties with equivalent numbers of bedrooms. This suggested that socially rented properties were approximately £11,992 cheaper per year in 2021. Adjusted for estimated service charges, the net discount works out at £11,610. Added up across the city across the whole of the population, this suggests a total subsidy of approximately £7.7 billion. If households headed by foreign-born residents take up a proportional share of this sum, it would amount to roughly £3.6 billion per year in total discounts. Separate data from the English Housing Survey suggests that there is significant variation between ethnic groups with regards to social housing use. Roughly 48 per cent of Black Caribbean households, 40 per cent of Black African households, and 40 per cent of Bangladeshi households in England live in social housing, compared with 16 per cent of White British households, and 5 per cent of Chinese and Indian households.
