16th Sep 2025 12:01
(Alliance News) - European blue-chips traded lower on Tuesday afternoon, with equity market sentiment on the continent wavering before the start of the Federal Reserve meeting, but across the Atlantic, stocks are expected to push even higher after a record close at the start of the week.
A stronger pound kept a lid on London's large-cap benchmark, which is stacked with international earners.
Elsewhere, gold added some sparkle, with the spot price approaching USD3,700.
The FTSE 100 index lost 20.96 points, 0.2%, at 9,256.07. The FTSE 250 fell just 8.20 points at 21,638.39, and the AIM All-Share was up 1.32 points, 0.2%, at 768.71.
The Cboe UK 100 was down 0.2% at 927.43, the Cboe UK 250 was flat at 18,962.65, but the Cboe Small Companies was marginally higher at 17,144.18.
In Paris, the CAC 40 was 0.1% lower. In Frankfurt, the DAX 40 was 0.4% lower.
The pound rose to USD1.3633 early on Tuesday afternoon, from USD1.3597 on Monday. The euro advanced to USD1.1807 from USD1.1765, while against the yen, the buck fell to JPY147.05 from JPY147.34.
The euro and pound hit their best levels since July.
The stronger sterling hit shares in international earners on the FTSE 100. Asia-focused insurer Prudential fell 2.2%, soft drink bottler Coca-Cola HBC fell 1.7% and consumer goods firm Unilever lost 1.0%.
The UK unemployment rate was unmoved in July, as expected, numbers on Tuesday showed.
According to the Office for National Statistics, the nation's jobless rate was steady at 4.7% in the three months to July, where it stood for the three months to June. The reading was in line with consensus cited by FXStreet.
The ONS said an estimate showed payrolled employees declined by 142,000 on-year in July and by 6,000 on-month.
"The early estimate of payrolled employees for August 2025 decreased by 127,000 (0.4%) on the year, and by 8,000 (0.0%) on the month, to 30.3 million," the ONS added.
"The estimated number of vacancies in the UK fell by 10,000 (1.4%) on the quarter, to 728,000, in June to August 2025. This is the 38th consecutive period where vacancy numbers have dropped compared with the previous three months, with vacancies decreasing in 9 of the 18 industry sectors."
Average growth in regular earnings during the three months, so excluding bonuses, was 4.8%, in line with consensus cited by FXStreet, cooling from 5.0% in the three months to June.
Total pay growth picked up slightly to 4.7% from 4.6%, but was in line with expectations.
Rostro analyst Joshua Mahony commented: "With wage growth easing from 5% to 4.8%, and the claimant count increasing to 17.4k, some will claim this could push the BoE towards a rate cut on Thursday. However, tomorrow's inflation report will likely put that argument to bed, with the UK CPI rate currently standing well above target at 3.8%. As such, we should expect precious little movement in terms of UK rates for some time, with market pricing the next cut in February 2026."
The yield on the US 10-year Treasury was unchanged at 4.04% on Tuesday afternoon, where it stood at the time of the London equities close on Monday. The yield on the 30-year Treasury inched up to 4.66% from 4.65%.
The US Senate on Monday narrowly cleared President Donald Trump's choice for a key role at the Federal Reserve, as the clock ticks down to the central bank's next policy meeting.
The Republican-majority Senate voted 48-47 to confirm Stephen Miran, who chairs the White House Council of Economic Advisers, allowing him to join the Fed's board of governors and therefore a panel of 12 voting members who set interest rates steering the world's biggest economy.
Brown Brothers Harriman analysts commented: "Miran is the most likely FOMC member to vote for a 50bps cut tomorrow. Meanwhile, Fed Governor Lisa Cook is also expected to attend the upcoming Federal Open Market Committee meeting. An appeals court allowed Cook to continue working during the ongoing legal proceedings. President Donald Trump could still ask the Supreme Court to step in."
On the docket for Tuesday afternoon is a US retail sales reading at 1330 BST. Ahead of the data, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is called flat, the S&P 500 up 0.2% and the Nasdaq Composite 0.3% higher. The S&P and Nasdaq achieved record closes on Monday.
In London, Haleon shares fell 3.2%. Barclays cut the consumer healthcare company to 'equal-weight' from 'overweight'.
At the other end of the index, Fresnillo rose 3.8%, with the gold miner boosted by a surging bullion price. Hochschild Mining added 1.4%.
Gold traded at USD3,695.02 an ounce midday Tuesday, up from USD3,668.27 at the time of the closing bell on the London Stock Exchange on Monday. Gold hit a record high of USD3,698.86 an ounce, on the cusp of the USD3,700 mark.
"The market has pushed gold to all-time highs for a reason, and while the exact reason could fall on any one of many macro debates and concerns being posed by market players, the fact that gold is uncorrelated from the S&P500 and US Treasuries and is a portfolio hedge that is working well makes the investment case highly attractive. The fact that gold has been so strong, the pullbacks limited, and contained, and the rate of change has picked up also brings in a lot of systematic buyers, and we can’t dismiss the importance of the flow-based effects pushing gold higher," Pepperstone analyst Chris Weston commented.
"Of course, the FOMC meeting does pose risk to gold positioning, but the risk to US growth is skewed to the downside, and the market is sensing a growing risk that the Fed has miscalculated its views on economics and are progressively behind the curve on policy."
Elsewhere in London, Trustpilot added 8.5%. The Copenhagen-based consumer review platform said pretax profit jumped 45% to USD3.7 million in the first half of 2025 from USD2.6 million a year prior.
Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation surged 70% to USD18.0 million from USD10.6 million, while the adjusted Ebitda margin improved to 14.6% from 10.6%.
Revenue climbed 23% to USD122.8 million from USD99.8 million.
Trustpilot now expects the adjusted Ebitda margin for the full-year to be in line with the first half, ahead of expectations. It had previously predicted an outcome of 14%.
SThree shares slumped 21%. It warned of a hit to profit in the next financial year due to continued subdued hiring activity.
The London-based science, technology, engineering and mathematics-focused recruiter said net fees in the third quarter to the end of August tumbled 12% on-year at constant currency.
It noted this was a "modest sequential improvement quarter-on-quarter" due to a return to US growth during the period.
The performance for the 2025 financial year to the end of November is expected to be in line with previously announced GBP25 million pretax profit guidance, SThree noted.
SThree noted that it has seen "positive momentum in certain markets and verticals" but said macro uncertainty has remained for longer than expected, which has impacted levels of new business activity.
"As a result, the board is now taking the prudent view that this subdued activity will continue into [financial 2026]," SThree said.
It said persistent softness in new business activity is expected to impact financial 2026 pretax profit consensus by around GBP20 million.
By Eric Cunha, Alliance News news editor
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