6th Mar 2026 09:10
(Alliance News) - Stock prices in London opened mostly higher on Friday, a relatively quiet day for company news, and following reports from the UK that February saw growth in house prices but a sharp drop in retail footfall.
UK house prices grew at their "strongest" annual rate in four months, while monthly growth slowed, Halifax reported. Prices grew 1.3% on an annual basis, beating the consensus forecast of a 0.9% increase, and rose 0.3% in February, as expected. And earlier on Friday, figures from the British Retail Consortium and Sensormatic showed total UK footfall declined 4.7% year-on-year in the four weeks to February 28, worsening from a 0.6% fall in January as "one of the wettest Februarys on record" kept consumers at home.
Meanwhile in global news, the US-Israeli war with Iran has entered its seventh day as the first government-chartered plane evacuating British nationals from the region touched down in the UK.
The FTSE 100 index opened up 24.48 points, 0.2%, at 10,438.42. The FTSE 250 was up 77.13 points, 0.3%, at 22,777.33, and the AIM all-share was up 0.94 points, 0.1%, at 789.30.
The Cboe UK 100 was up 0.4% at 1,040.37, and the Cboe UK 250 was up 0.3% at 20,087.51, and the Cboe small companies was marginally lower at 18,018.60.
IMI led the FTSE 100, up 3.1%, after it announced a new GBP500 million share buyback and reported what it called another year of "high-quality" revenue and profit growth.
The engineering products company's pretax profit rose 27% to GBP419 million in 2025, while revenue increased 4.1%, or 5% organically, to GBP2.30 billion. IMI proposed a final dividend of 23.2p per share, up 10%, taking the total payout to 34.2p per share, up 10%.
Looking ahead, IMI expects to deliver its sixth consecutive year of mid-single digit organic revenue growth, and expects full-year adjusted basic EPS to be between 136p and 142p.
Property firm Rightmove was up 1.8% following Halifax's house price figures.
ITV led the FTSE 250, up 7.4% after its full-year earnings release on Thursday. The broadcaster said it performed ahead of market expectations, while talks over a possible sale of its Media & Entertainment to Comcast-owned Sky continue.
Elementis, which was the worst performer with a 2.0% decrease, had also reported annual results on Thursday. The London-based chemical manufacturer said pretax profit shot up 21% despite revenue declining 1.0%, and raised its annual dividend by 7.5% to 4.3 cents.
In smaller caps, Various Eateries opened 3.7% higher.
The restaurant group, which runs Coppa Club and Noci venues, has agreed to acquire a portfolio of pubs with rooms from Grosvenor Pubs and Inns, for a total of GBP11.3 million.
They include Wild Thyme & Honey in Cotswolds, The Hare & Hounds in Berkshire, The Stag on the River in Surrey and The Wellington Arms in Hampshire.
On acquisition, the sites will form a third operating brand of Various Eateries, named The Linwood Collection, alongside Coppa Club and Noci.
Various Eateries also announced plans to change its name to the Coppa Collective.
In European equities on Friday, the CAC 40 in Paris was down 0.6%, while the DAX 40 in Frankfurt was up 0.5%.
The pound was quoted higher at USD1.3374 early on Friday in London, compared to USD1.3309 at the equities close on Thursday. The euro stood higher at USD1.1609, against USD1.1574. Against the yen, the dollar was trading slightly lower at JPY157.60 compared to JPY157.67.
In Asia on Friday, the Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo was up 0.6%. In China, the Shanghai Composite was up 0.4%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was up 1.8%. The S&P/ASX 200 in Sydney closed down 1.0%.
In the US on Thursday, Wall Street ended lower, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 1.6%, the S&P 500 down 0.6% and the Nasdaq Composite down 0.3%.
"Beyond the Middle East headlines," Swissquote's Ipek Ozkardeskaya commented, "one of yesterday’s most demoralizing developments was news that the US government plans to introduce a licensing requirement for certain advanced chip exports, forcing foreign companies to seek US government approval before acquiring these chips...Overall, this week has injected a large dose of geopolitical uncertainty into a market environment that was already unsettled by concerns about Big Tech’s heavy AI spending – increasingly financed by debt – fears that AI could disrupt many business models and jobs, and growing stress in private credit markets."
The yield on the US 10-year Treasury was quoted at 4.15%, unchanged from late on Thursday. The yield on the US 30-year Treasury was also unchanged, at 4.76%.
Brent oil was quoted higher at USD85.34 a barrel early in London on Friday from USD84.41 late on Thursday.
"Announcements of potential measures from the US government to tame the oil price rally helped pour some cold water on the surge [on Thursday]," Ozkardeskaya recounted. These measures include a possible release of strategic oil reserves...or even US Treasury trading oil futures – the latter would be unprecedented."
However, she notes that "many doubt that government selling of oil futures would sustainably cap prices" and that "government intervention could easily be absorbed unless it were extremely large".
"So unsurprisingly, oil is pushing higher again this morning," she said.
Gold was quoted higher at USD5,112.50 an ounce against USD5,075.16.
Still to come on Friday's economic calendar, the eurozone has its gross domestic product release while the US has nonfarm payrolls and retail sales.
Ozkardeskaya noted that "today’s US jobs data would ideally come in strong to keep market sentiment as positive as possible heading into the weekend.
"Weak data would struggle to fuel dovish Fed expectations at a time when inflation risks are rising alongside energy prices."
By Emma Curzon, Alliance News reporter
Comments and questions to [email protected]
Copyright 2026 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Related Shares:
IMIRightmoveITVElementis