Weekly Round Up
The UK’s main market had various swings during the week but the FTSE 100 Index managed to maintain most of last week’s gains, falling by a mere 0.08% to 7,215 points at the time of writing.
Retail sales in the UK unexpectedly dropped 0.2% month-on-month in September, following a downwardly revised 0.6% fall in August, and compared to forecasts of a 0.5% increase. This now marks the longest period of back-to-back monthly declines since records began in 1996.
Despite this fall, sales were still 4.2% above February 2020’s pre-pandemic levels. Regardless of the relaxation of Covid-19 restrictions in the summer, in-store retail sales remain subdued. The proportion of retail sales online rose to 28.1% in September 2021, from 27.9% in August, substantially higher than the 19.7% in February 2020 before the pandemic.
Meanwhile the UK’s GfK Consumer Confidence Index fell for the third straight month amid concerns over fuel and food shortages, surging inflation squeezing household budgets, the likelihood of interest rate rises impacting the cost of borrowing and climbing Covid-19 rates.
Chinese equities closed in a mixed state on Friday, with property shares rising after China’s Evergrande Group surprisingly paid interest on an overdue dollar-denominated bond, while miners and energy stocks dragged the market down.
The Shanghai Composite lost 0.34% to close at 3,583, while the Shenzhen Component gained 0.33% to 14,493, with both indices capping the week slightly higher. Coal and energy stocks tumbled as Beijing pledged to bring coal prices down to reasonable levels through government intervention.
US stock futures retreated on Friday, led by a 0.5% decline in the Nasdaq-100 futures to below 13,400 after post-market earnings reports dampened sentiment. The S&P 500 futures fell 0.25% after closing at a record high on Thursday while the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell by 0.1%.
Various digital businesses declined in after-hours trading including Facebook falling by 4%; Twitter falling by 5%; and Google falling by 2%. Intel also fell by 10% on a revenue miss and component shortage for its PC chip. Meanwhile, upbeat economic data and other positive earnings results still brought the US indices within striking distance of all-time highs in Thursday’s regular trading session.
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