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(Alliance News) - Stock prices in London are seen opening marginally lower on Tuesday after UK jobs data suggested an improving trend month-on-month in February but worsened on the prior year.
IG futures indicate the FTSE 100 index is to open 0.78 point lower at 6,999.3 on Tuesday. The blue-chip index closed down 19.45 points, or 0.3%, at 7,000.08 on Monday.
Unemployment in the UK edged down to 4.9% in the quarter ending February, the National Statistics Office said, with the jobless rate lower than expected.
The UK unemployment rate was 0.9 percentage point higher than a year earlier but 0.1 percentage point down from 5.0% in the three months ended January.
For December to February, an estimated 1.7 million people were unemployed, up 311,000 on a year before but down 50,000 on the quarter, the first quarterly decrease since October to December 2019.
Market consensus, according to FXStreet, forecast the rate at unemployment rate in the quarter to February at 5.1%.
The pound was quoted at USD1.3992 early Tuesday, up from USD1.3984 at the London equities close Monday.
The euro was priced at USD1.2060 early Tuesday, firm from USD1.2029 late Monday. Against the Japanese yen, the dollar was quoted at JPY108.23, firm from JPY108.06.
In early UK company news, Primark-owner Associated British Foods awarded shareholders with dividend as it gained back confidence after stores reopened last week and Primark once again becoming cash generative.
AB Foods declared a 6.2 pence a share payout for the 24 weeks to February 27 after not paying dividends for its previous financial year.
The company reported a 8% decline in pretax profit for the half-year to GBP275 million, as revenue fell by 17% to GBP6.31 billion year-on-year. On a constant currency basis, revenue came in 18% lower.
The performance was hurt by impact on its Retail division of the measures taken to control the spread of Covid-19, AB Foods explained.
Elsewhere, the Sugar arm continued to deliver a much-improved performance, driven in the first half by Illovo, the company said. Grocery delivered a strong result through a combination of successful new product launches and increased volumes through retail sales channels, it said. Profit at both AB Agri and Ingredients also were well ahead of last year.
Looking forward, AB Foods said, following the exceptional performance of its Grocery, Sugar, Agriculture and Ingredients businesses in the first half, it expects a softer performance in the second half.
"With the reopening of stores in England and Wales last week, and expected re-openings in some markets over the coming weeks, we will be trading at the end of April from 68% of our retail selling space, which increases to 79% if stores with restricted trading are included," the company noted. AB Foods added that it will increase its retail selling space with an additional nine stores opening in the second half.
However, the company noted that it continues to expect the profit for Primark to be somewhat lower than last year.
Miner Rio Tinto left its annual production guidance unchanged after a "solid" first-quarter. Pilbara iron ore shipments rose 7% annually to 77.8 million tonnes in the first three months of the year. Pilbara output slipped 2% to 76.4 million tonnes, however.
"Labour resource availability and weather challenges disrupted maintenance. Tropical Cyclone Seroja impacted mine and port operations in April," Rio Tinto explained.
Bauxite output also was 2% lower, at 13.6 million, while production of mined copper was 9% lower year-on-year at 120,500 tonnes. For aluminium, production was 3% higher at 803,000 tonnes.
For the whole of 2021, Rio continues to expect Pilbara iron ore shipments of between 325 million and 340 million tonnes. Guidance for bauxite, aluminium and mined copper also was unchanged.
Cybersecurity provider Avast said it has made a "good start" to the year with continued demand for its security, privacy and performance solutions. Revenue for the three months to the end of March grew by 11% year-on-year to USD237.1 million.
The Consumer Direct business continued to deliver good growth, Avast said, while the SMB business also sustained its positive momentum.
For the first quarter, adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization increased 10% to USD133.7 million, resulting in an adjusted Ebitda margin of 56.4%. However, Avast said guidance for its adjusted Ebitda margin for the full 2021 remains broadly flat versus the prior year.
Comparison website Moneysupermarket.com said its first-quarter performance was in line with expectations, given ongoing market disruption. Total revenue for the three months to the end of March was GBP85.5 million, a decline of 20% on the prior year.
The company noted that its Insurance segment performance overall was broadly consistent throughout the quarter. Within Money, however, the quarter was hurt initially by lower year-on-year search demand for credit products and the continuation of tightened lending criteria.
In Home Services, while savings available from energy switching were significantly lower than a year ago, energy performance improved from January into February and March.
Within the 'Other' unit, performance was mixed as TravelSupermarket revenue remained negligible due to travel restrictions, while Decision Tech continued its double-digit growth in both B2B and B2C.
"We are moving ahead with our updated strategy, enhancing how we manage our data and starting to attract customers more efficiently. Several channels remain impacted by Covid-19, but we are well positioned to weather this period and return shortly to profitable growth," said Chief Executive Peter Duffy.
In the US on Monday, Wall Street ended lower, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.4%, S&P 500 down 0.5% and Nasdaq Composite down 1.0%.
"US markets also finished the day on the back foot, weighed down largely by weakness in tech stocks, which may well have been prompted by a large fall in bitcoin over the weekend," said CMC Markets UK Chief Market Analyst Michael Hewson.
Bitcoin was quoted at USD54,700 on Tuesday, down from a high of USD62,000 last week.
"Markets in Asia have continued the softer theme with the Nikkei 225 falling sharply," Hewson noted.
The Japanese Nikkei 225 index closed down 1.8% on Monday. In China, the Shanghai Composite and the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong were both flat. The S&P/ASX 200 in Sydney closed down 0.8%.
The People's Bank of China left interest rates unchanged again as expected, the central bank said on Tuesday.
The Chinese central bank has now kept its benchmark interest rate at the same level for the 12 months in a row.
The one-year loan prime rate was held at 3.85%, the last time the rate was changed was back in April 2020. The five-year rate also was unchanged at 4.65%.
The loan prime rate is a lending reference rate set monthly by 18 banks. The People's Bank of China revamped the mechanism to price loan prime rate in August 2019, loosely pegging it to the medium-term lending facility.
The medium lending facility was left unchanged last week at 2.95%.
Brent oil was quoted at USD67.72 a barrel Tuesday morning, up from USD66.79 late Monday. Gold was trading at USD1,771.11 an ounce, lower from USD1,773.63.
By Evelina Grecenko; evelinagrecenko@alliancenews.com
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