7th May 2019 16:54
LONDON (Alliance News) - Stock prices in London closed lower on Tuesday as investors returned from the long Bank Holiday weekend to the prospect of rising trade tensions between the US and China once again. The FTSE 100 index closed 1.6% lower at 7,260.47. The mid-cap FTSE 250 index ended down 1.2% at 19,465.69, and the AIM All-Share index finished 0.5% lower at 965.80.The Cboe UK 100 closed down 1.7% at 12,297.54, the Cboe UK 250 down 1.1% at 17,491.93, but the Cboe UK Small Companies up 0.1% at 11,788.20.At the close Tuesday, sterling was lower against the US dollar. The pound was quoted at USD1.3050 at the London close, unchanged from USD1.3150 late Friday."After a relatively composed start to the session, the European losses started to accelerate on Tuesday," SpreadEx Financial Analyst Connor Campbell said."Initially it looked like the FTSE was going to be able to avoid the kind of trade war-fearing decline suffered by its non-Bank Holidaying peers on Monday, the belated blow softened by reports that vice-president Liu He was heading to Washington on Thursday to continue talks with US negotiators," Campbell added."However, that dam failed to hold back the swell of investor-concerns for long," Campbell continued, with the blue chip index hitting its lowest level since late March. On Sunday, US President Donald Trump surprisingly announced on Twitter that he would hike tariffs on USD200 billion in goods from China from 10% to 25% from Friday. The hikes had originally been postponed by Trump as long as talks between the two countries were still ongoing and making progress.Trump added on the social media site that: "The trade deal with China continues, but too slowly, as they attempt to renegotiate. No!"US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer justified the move by the president by accusing China of having backtracked on promises made to the US earlier in an attempt to bring the months-long trade war to an end."Over the course of the last week or so, we've seen an erosion in commitments by China, I would say retreating from commitments that have already been made," Lighthizer was quoted to have said according to the Wall Street Journal.In response, China said that Vice Premier Liu He would visit the US for two days of negotiations from Thursday. His trip had originally been intended to start on Wednesday, but was put in question with the tariffs news.On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang argued it was "normal" for the two sides to have differences in the talks, adding that "China does not evade contradictions and is sincere in continuing consultations."On Wall Street, the Dow Jones was trading 1.4% lower, the S&P 500 down 1.5%, and the Nasdaq was down 1.8%. Broader trade anxiety was compounded by another weak data print from the largest eurozone economy, Germany. Factory orders in March grew just 0.6% on February, having been expected by economists to rebound with 1.5% growth after the 4.0% fall reported in February and 2.1% decline in January."After the horrendous factory orders release in February, the March numbers released today failed to deliver any hoped-for bounce-back," Oxford Economics Eurozone Economist Moritz Degler said. Degler explained that the modest month-on-month growth left first quarter 2019 factory orders 4.1% lower than that of the fourth quarter 2018."This suggests that increased uncertainty and slowing global growth continued to weigh on the German industrial sector at the end of the first quarter", Degler added.Amongst the blue chips in London, Asia-exposed firms were prominent amongst the losers as tensions between the US and China ramped up. Asia-focused financial firms Standard Chartered, HSBC and Prudential closed 2.5%, 2.7% and 3.7% lower respectively. Meanwhile, luxury goods maker Burberry ended 3.8% lower as investors worried that increased tension could pressurise its key Asian customer base.More generally, commodities, industrial and financial firms were all under pressure as trade tension amplified worries about global growth prospects. In the mid-caps, security outsourcer G4S ended 2.8% lower after Canadian peer Garda World Security confirmed on Sunday it would not be making an offer for the firm. The announcement comes after Garda confirmed it was considering a cash bid for G4S in late April. Domino's Pizza closed 1.5% lower after badly received first quarter results in which it announced it did not expect its international operations to break even for the full year.For the three months ended March, the pizza delivery firm reported total systems sales rose 4.3% to GBP324.4 million on the year prior. This was driven by a 4.8% growth in UK & Republic of Ireland system sales to GBP299.3 million, offset by a 2.0% fall in international sales to GBP25.1 million. "Internationally, performance remains disappointing and trading visibility is limited," Domino's Chief Executive Officer David Wild said, adding that "given persistently weak system sales in all our International markets we no longer expect this part of our business to break-even this year." Kier closed 1.3% lower after it reported Finance Director Bev Dew would leave the building firm at the end of September, the news coming less than a month after the firm welcomed a new boss.Dew - who has been in post for four years - will leave shortly after the financial results for the year ended June are released. In mid-April, Chief Executive Officer Andrew Davies joined the FTSE 250-listed firm and announced he would lead a strategic review to develop a "more focused group."Online estate agent Purplebricks ended down 12% after founder and boss Michael Bruce stepped down immediately following what the firm described as the "disappointing" performance at the firm over the last year. Bruce will be succeeded by Chief Operating Officer Vic Darvey, a former managing director of Moneysupermarket.com Group. "With hindsight, our rate of geographic expansion was too rapid and as a result the quality of execution has suffered," Purplebricks Chair Paul Pindar said. "We have also made sub-optimal decisions in allocating capital. We will learn from these errors and will not make them again."In the green, shares in Begbies Traynor jumped 18% after the business recovery and property services consultancy expects profit and revenue to be "comfortably" ahead of market expectations following "strong" performances from its operating units. For the year ended April 2018, Begbies generated GBP2.3 million pretax profit on revenue of GBP52.4 million.Begbies explained that this better-than-expected performance was "driven by a number of successful fee realisations combined with continuing strong performance from both operating divisions."In mainland Europe, in Paris the CAC 40 equities index and the DAX 30 in Frankfurt both ended down 1.8%.The euro was quoted at USD1.1189, compared to USD1.1185 late Friday.German luxury carmaker Porsche - a subsidiary of Volkswagen - was fined EUR535 million by prosecutors in Stuttgart following regulatory offences related to the diesel emissions scandal which broke in 2015. In 2018, Braunschweig prosecutors fined parent firm Volkswagen EUR1 billion for the same violation.In the US, market anticipation was building ahead of the initial public offer of car-hailing and fast food delivery application maker Uber. The loss-making firm is set to debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, in what is expected to be the biggest IPO since Chinese retailer Alibaba in 2014. Gold was quoted at USD1,284.52 an ounce at the London equities close, higher versus USD1,279.90 Friday.Brent oil was quoted at USD70.08 a barrel at the London equities close, lower than USD71.18 Friday.In a quiet economic calendar on Wednesday, China releases its trade balance data at 0300 BST. Later, German industrial production figures are due at 0700 BST and in the US mortgage applications numbers are released at 1200 BST and the change in crude oil stocks at 1530 BST.In UK corporate events on Wednesday, tobacco giant Imperial Brands delivers its half year results. Meanwhile, full year results are due from vehicle retailer Vertu Motors. Quarterly results are also expected from media firm ITV, insurer Direct Line Insurance Group, challenger bank OneSavings Bank, investment firm Apax Global Alpha, pub operator JD Wetherspoon and builders merchant Travis Perkins. Trading statements are anticipated from fellow builders merchants Grafton Group and SIG as well as construction firm Morgan Sindall.