Funding Circle Share News (FCH)

LONDON (Alliance News) - Stocks in London were tentatively higher at midday as an update over US-China trade talks failed to inspire investors, with a potential announcement four weeks away. The presidents of China and the US have signalled progress on a new trade deal which would help end the trade war between the two major economic powers.Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, who is in Washington as Beijing's lead negotiator to resolve the nine month-long trade war, conveyed Chinese President Xi Jinping's message to his US counterpart Donald Trump at the White House.The Chinese president said that new substantial progress has been made on the text of the China-US economic and trade agreement in the past month.Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Xi as telling Trump that under the current situation, a healthy and stable development of China-US relations concerns the interests of both Chinese and American people as well as the interests of people of other countries.Earlier, Trump had said a trade deal was close, and something very "monumental" could be announced in next four weeks.The FTSE 100 was up 11.94 points, or 0.1%, at 7,413.94 Thursday midday. The FTSE 250 was up 9.75 points at 19,517.08. The AIM All-Share was up 0.2% at 922.00.The Cboe UK 100 index was up 0.1% at 12,580.52. The Cboe UK 250 was flat at 17,469.88, while the Cboe UK Small Companies was up 0.3% at 11,276.57."An update on trade talks between the US and China failed to have any major influence on global stock markets. A deal is expected within the next four to six weeks, although investors remain cautious as reflected by [limited] rallying on the news," said AJ Bell's Russ Mould. In the FTSE 100, miners were higher on hopes for a possible US-China trade deal, with Anglo American, Antofagasta and Glencore up 1.2%, 1.1% and 1.0%, respectively. At the other end of the large cap index, housebuilders were lower after data from Halifax showed monthly house prices fell in March. Berkeley Group was down 1.5%, Barratt Developments was down 1.0% and Persimmon was down 0.9%. House prices in the three months to March were 3.2% higher compared to the same period a year ago. On a monthly basis, however, house prices fell 1.6% in March. The average house price in the UK is now GBP233,181, Halifax said. "These conflicting challenges, when combined with the ongoing uncertainty around Brexit, have had an impact across the country but most notably in London, meaning that we continue to expect subdued price growth for the time being," said Halifax Managing Director Russell Galley.In the FTSE 250, ContourGlobal was the best performer, up 6.0% after the power plant operator declared a dividend above company guidance as it reported a surge in annual revenue. For 2018, revenue grew by 23% to USD1.25 billion from USD1.02 billion in 2017. However, pretax profit fell 32% to USD27.8 million from USD40.6 million the year before - due to higher depreciation and amortisation costs as well as finance expenses. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation however increased by 19% to USD610 million from USD513 million in 2017, due to growth on acquisitions of CSP Spain and CHP Mexico and gains from the sale of minority solar assets in Italy and Slovakia. ContourGlobal declared a final dividend of 9.4 cents per share, leading to a total payout of 13.4 cents, or USD90 million in total. The total dividend is above the group's initial guidance of USD80 million. Looking ahead, ContourGlobal has guided adjusted Ebitda for 2019 to be in the range of USD720 million to USD770 million and dividends to increase by 10% per year.At the other end of the midcaps, small business lender Funding Circle Holdings was the worst performer, down 7.5% after its sister investment trust Funding Circle SME Income declared its intention to wind down.Shares in Funding Circle SME were up 0.8%.Funding Circle SME Income Fund holds a portfolio of small business loans which come from the Funding Circle Holdings platform. It was set up in 2015 to invest in loans originated through Funding Circle's key geographies in the UK, US, Germany and the Netherlands - but returns have stalled in recent times. Funding Circle SME Income Fund said Friday that some shareholders had indicated they want the fund to stop investing and be wound up in an "orderly and expeditious fashion". Funding Circle SME plans to hold an extraordinary general meeting in the future where shareholders will vote on whether to wind down the company, which would lead to its assets being realised and not reinvested. Funding Circle SME said the decision followed consultation with around two-thirds of its shareholders. In response to the announcement, Funding Circle Holdings said that Funding Circle SME had become a "declining part of its overall funding mix", as the group started to expand its range of funding sources and become more international in nature. Stagecoach Group was down 5.0% after Jefferies downgraded the transport operator to Underperform from Hold."We express caution surrounding; the sustainability of regional top line growth, cost inflation headwinds and over capacity and positioning in the London bus cycle," Jefferies analyst Becky Lane said. The pound was quoted at USD1.3080 at midday, slightly higher compared to USD1.3075 at the London equities close Thursday.UK Prime Minister Theresa May has written to European Council President Donald Tusk to ask for Brexit to be delayed until June 30, with the option to leave earlier if her Withdrawal Agreement is ratified.The prime minister said she will seek to secure ratification and departure before the European Parliament elections on May 23, but will make "responsible preparations" for the UK to take part in the polls if that does not prove possible.The request will be considered at an emergency EU summit on April 10, where it requires the unanimous agreement of the leaders of the remaining 27 member states.But EU sources said Tusk is recommending a longer postponement of one year, with a break clause in the case of earlier ratification, in a so-called "flextension" deal.May has already obtained one extension to the Article 50 withdrawal process, postponing the date of Brexit from March 29 to April 12 - next Friday."The one thing a longer extension will provide for sure is greater levels of uncertainty which is clearly bad news for the UK economy. The latest round of PMI releases this week revealed a marked slowdown in activity in both the services and construction sectors and while the manufacturing equivalent rose this was largely due to record levels of stockpiling on Brexit fears which in itself is a concern. Taking additional measures to avoid a no-deal will be warmly welcomed by large swathes of business but the prolonged uncertainty is far from desired and while the worst case outcome looks likely to be avoided the further delay could be seen to amount to death by a thousand cuts for some," said XTB analyst David Cheatham. In Paris the CAC 40 was up 0.2%, while the DAX 30 in Frankfurt was down 0.1%. The euro stood at USD1.1228, marginally higher than USD1.1215 at the European equities close Thursday. In economic news from the continent, Germany's adjusted industrial production grew 0.7% in February, slightly slower than the 0.8% gain economists had predicted, preliminary figures from the Federal Statistical Office showed.Stocks in New York were set for a higher open ahead of the closely watched US jobs report for March at 1330 BST. The DJIA was pointed up 0.1%, while the S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq Composite were called 0.2% higher.US Employment is expected to jump by 180,000 jobs in March after inching up by just 20,000 jobs in February, while the unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 3.8%."The big question is quite how the jobs market recovers from last month's shockingly low 20k payrolls figure, with the effect of the government shutdown out of the way. With historically elevated average earnings and unemployment rate figures, the US seems to be in relatively good standing despite coming off the boil amid a global slowdown," IG Group's Joshua Mahony said.