13th Mar 2025 09:15
(Alliance News) - Stocks in Europe struggled for impetus on Thursday, with the FTSE 100 outperforming slightly, as investors continue to move with trepidation amid tariff worries.
The FTSE 100 index traded up 7.04 points, 0.1%, at 8,548.01. The FTSE 250 was down 99.03 points, 0.5%, at 19,787.48, and the AIM All-Share was down 1.19 points, 0.2%, at 679.73.
The Cboe UK 100 was up 0.2% at 854.34, the Cboe UK 250 was down 0.5% at 17,222.98, and the Cboe Small Companies rose 0.6% at 15,207.66.
In Paris, the CAC 40 fell 0.2%, while the DAX 40 in Frankfurt lost 0.6%.
The pound faded to USD1.2951 early Thursday, from USD1.2978 at the time of the London equities close on Wednesday. The euro slipped to USD1.0874 from USD1.0914. Against the yen, the dollar fell to JPY147.91 from JPY148.32.
A barrel of Brent rose slightly to USD71.01 from USD70.87. Gold traded at USD2,941.70 an ounce, up slightly from USD2,935.01.
In Asia on Thursday, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 slipped slightly. The Shanghai Composite was 0.4% lower, while the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong was down 0.9%. The S&P/ASX 200 in Sydney lost 0.5%.
In New York on Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2%, but the S&P 500 added 0.5% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 1.2%.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, US consumer prices rose 2.8% on-year in February, cooling from a 3.0% rise in January. The figure was shy of the FXStreet-cited consensus, which pencilled in a 2.9% yearly increase in consumer prices.
The pace of US consumer price inflation had accelerated for four months in a row, after sitting at 2.4% in September.
A producer price reading, and the latest jobless claims data, are released at 1230 GMT on Thursday.
According to FXStreet-cited consensus, annual producer price growth is expected to have eased to 3.3% in February from 3.5% in January.
"US equity markets were notably less volatile on Wednesday and managed to eke out a gain. Although this has not persisted, and US equity market future are pointing to a lower open today, this has led to a subtle shift in the narrative about the state of risky assets. Some investment banks are now calling a bottom in US markets. This is to be expected, it's been a brutal month for US stock markets," XTB analyst Kathleen Brooks commented.
"These are still headline driven markets, and any recovery could be fragile. The big economic data to watch, is Friday's University of Michigan consumer sentiment and inflation expectations for March. If sentiment falls further, it could hinder hopes of a recovery for risky assets. European markets are lower today, which suggests that traders are not yet ready to buy the dip."
In London, life-saving equipment manufacturer Halma rose 2.7%. It now expects an adjusted earnings before interest and tax margin "modestly above" 21% for the year ending March 31. It had previously expected an outcome "around 21%".
Cider maker C&C Group plunged 19%. It said it expects to report underlying earnings before interest and tax in the range of EUR76 million and EUR78 million for the year ended February 28. This would be "modestly below" its target but a "significant recovery" from the prior year's earnings of EUR60 million.
C&C reported "softer trading across the market in January and February".
It plans to commence a further EUR15 million share buyback programme at the start of May.
Rail ticketing platform Trainline lost 13%. It reported net ticket sales growth of 12% for the year ended February 28, an outcome at the bottom end of its outlook range. It had expected growth between 12% and 14%.
Revenue advanced 12% to GBP442 million, at the mid-point of an 11% to 13% outlook range.
"Trainline is delivering as a truly homegrown tech success and today has announced a further share buyback of up to GBP75 million. With record net ticket sales for the third year in a row, we saw growth in consumer sales in the UK of 13% and in Spain of 41%, while international B2B sales through our Global API increased by about 60%. Our decades-long experience in delivering ease, choice and value for our 27 million customers sets us apart from the competition, be it global tech players or national incumbents. There is still so much to be achieved in the UK and Europe with the critical foundation being open, fair and competitive markets. Rail is set to surge across Europe and Trainline will be at the centre of it," Trainline added.
Deliveroo gave back 10%. The food delivery platform swung to pretax profit of GBP12.2 million in 2024, from a loss of GBP10.9 million in 2023, as revenue rose 2.0% to GBP2.07 billion from GBP2.03 billion.
The firm intends to return up to GBP100 million to shareholders via the launch of a new share buyback, to begin shortly.
Deliveroo expects high-single digit gross transaction value growth for 2025, alongside adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation between GBP170 million and GBP190 million, growing up to 47% at best from GBP129.6 million in 2024.
However, it delayed the delivery of its medium-term adjusted Ebitda margin of more than 4%.
"The improvement in the consumer backdrop has taken longer than we anticipated at the time of the capital markets event, which has delayed the delivery of our adjusted Ebitda margin target," Deliveroo said.
Elsewhere in London, DFS Furniture jumped 11%. The sofa seller announced a jump in profit for the half-year to December 24.
Pretax profit improved to GBP15.8 million from GBP900,000. Revenue amounted to GBP504.5 million, a 0.1% slip from GBP505.1 million.
"Trading through the first 10 weeks of our second half has remained strong. Order intake has increased from the 10% achieved in H1, with our year to date order intake now 11% year on year. Whilst we face some tougher prior year comparatives and do not expect to retain this level of growth for the remainder of the period we are confident in delivering a higher underlying profit than the current analyst consensus of GBP22.7 million," DFS added.
By Eric Cunha, Alliance News news editor
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