With leading shares still under pressure on Brexit fears and falling oil prices, there are finally two risers in the FTSE 100.
Unsurprisingly, with investors seeking the safety of gold and silver, they are both precious metal miners. Mexican miner Fresnillo is up 2p at 1213p while Randgold Resources has risen 5p to 6630p.
Overall though the FTSE 100 is down 89.09 points or 1.4% at 6142.80, while European markets are also sharply lower. Germany’s Dax is down 2% and France’s Cac is 1.8% lower. ahead of the US Federal Reserve meeting next week, when an interest rate rise is unlikely but still cannot be ruled out entirely, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is forecast to open around 80 points lower. Mike van Dulken, Head of Research at Accendo Markets said:
Equity indices have gone for a dress-down and risk-off Friday, with major support levels breached or seeing meaningful tests. This is derived from Asian bourses following their stateside peers south as negative bond yields become more prevalent, calling into question global monetary stimulus efforts while growth and inflation struggle to recover post-crisis. And with event-risk related to next week’s Fed policy update and a too-close-to-call UK referendum on EU membership the week after, investors are continuing to temper their appetite for risk assets into the week-end.
The FTSE 250 mid-cap index has dropped 1.3% but an exception is pharmaceutical group Vectura, up 3.6p at 163.1p after the successful completion of its merger with Skeypharma. Dr Jens Lindqvist at N+1 Singer said:
The merger between Skyepharma and Vectura, which completed this morning, has in our view created a global leader in the development of therapeutic respiratory products. The enlarged group has a proven development capability across all major drug classes and multiple therapeutic areas, coupled with strong expected revenue growth and cash generation from existing commercial partnerships. We believe the strategic rationale dwarfs the expected £10m of annual synergies and reiterate our buy recommendation.
But Ocado has dropped nearly 6% to 243.3p after this week’s news of the launch of Amazon Fresh in London.
