7th Apr 2014 06:40
LONDON (Alliance News) - UK stocks are set to open lower Monday, following the falls seen in the US as well as Asia overnight, and as geopolitical concern over tensions in Ukraine return to the foreground.
US stocks had been pushing into new all-time highs ahead of the opening bell Friday, and expectations for a strong non-farm payroll employment report were high. While the jobs report was relatively strong compared to recent readings, it came in slightly behind expectations, and traders in the US appeared to take profits on the recent market gains.
The always highly anticipated, and recently difficult to predict, monthly non-farm payroll report showed Friday that the US economy added 192,000 jobs in March, slightly below the 200,000 average prediction. While the March print was lower than expected, the January and February numbers were revised higher to 144,000 and 197,000 respectively, in a net upward revision of 37,000 jobs.
Released at the same time, the headline rate of unemployment held steady in March. Despite the continued job growth, the rate came in at 6.7%, unchanged from February's reading. Economists had been expecting the rate to dip slightly to 6.6%.
US equities turned negative after the print, and the DJIA closed down almost 1.0%, the S&P 500 closed down 1.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite fell sharply, closing down 2.6%.
In Asia overnight, the Nikkei lost 1.7%, and the Hang Seng is down 0.6%, while the Shanghai market remained closed for the Ching Ming festival in China.
Spread betters are indicating that UK stocks will follow lower Monday, with the FTSE 100 called to open almost 0.7% lower at 6,645.00 points.
Media reports from Ukraine also may weigh on sentiment Monday, with pro-Russian activists reportedly taking control of government buildings in towns in eastern Ukraine. The protesters are calling for more parts of Ukraine to be annexed by Russia as Crimea has been.
German industrial production expanded by 0.4% in February, slowing from 0.7% in January, although exceeding economists expectations of an increase of just 0.3%. Year-on-year, production increased by 4.8% in February, slightly slower than the 4.9% year-on-year growth recorded in January.
In a fairly quiet day for macro data releases, the German data was the major release of the day, and has done little to boost sentiment in Europe ahead of the equity market open, with spread betters indicating the DAX will open more than 0.8% lower.
Still to come in the data calendar Monday, the eurozone sentix investor confidence index for April at 0830 GMT, which economists expect to expand to 14.2, from 13.9 in March.
In the UK corporate calendar, food producer Cranswick has released a trading statement , as has AIM-listed software company Synety Group.
By Jon Darby; [email protected]; @jondarby100
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