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(Alliance News) - London's FTSE 100 was struggling to find its footing on Tuesday morning, with HSBC sinking more than 5%, while local investors wait for the new UK prime minister to announce his Cabinet.
Rishi Sunak is expected to address the nation just before noon, before entering No 10 as the UK's first Hindu prime minister, the first of Asian heritage, and the youngest for more than 200 years at the age of 42.
The former chancellor will then turn his attention to assembling a top team that he will hope can return a measure of stability to both the Conservatives and the country.
Oanda's Edward Moya was sceptical. "Sunak now has a very short period of time to survive the global energy crisis, avoid fiscal chaos, and outline a credible growth plan," the analyst said.
Sterling traded at USD1.1287 early Tuesday, soft from USD1.1295 at the London equities close on Monday.
The FTSE 100 index was down 14.21 points, or 0.2%, at 6,999.78. The mid-cap FTSE 250 was up 34.12 points, or 0.2%, at 17,371.67, and the AIM All-Share was up 1.43 points, or 0.2%, at 788.98.
The Cboe UK 100 was down 0.5% at 698.28, the Cboe UK 250 up 0.1% at 14,833.60, and the Cboe Small Companies down 0.1% at 12,206.98.
In European equities on Tuesday, the CAC 40 in Paris was up 0.6% and the DAX 40 in Frankfurt was 0.2% higher.
Global market attention wasn't exclusively on Westminster.
Danske Bank Chief Analyst Kristoffer Kjaer Lomholt said: "While many important macro stories are unfolding right now, the most important one is in our view market speculations that the Fed could be closer to a policy pivot in a more dovish direction. Notably, despite the recent move lower in natural gas prices, longer-term market based inflation expectations continue to creep higher.
"In our view, that highlights that it is still too early for central banks including the Fed to turn into a more accommodative mode since this risks jeopardizing the fight against higher inflation."
Amid that hope that the Fed will be easing off the monetary brake, stocks in the US ended higher on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 1.3%, the S&P 500 up 1.2%, and the Nasdaq Composite up 0.9%.
In London, HSBC was anchored to the bottom of the blue-chips, down 5.4%, after it reported a decline in profit and revenue in the third quarter, as well as appointing a new chief financial officer.
In the three months to September 30, HSBC reported pretax profit of USD3.15 billion, down 42% from USD5.40 billion a year before.
"We maintained our strong momentum in the third quarter and delivered a good set of results. Our strategy produced good organic growth in all three global businesses, and net interest income increased on the back of rising interest rates. We retained a tight grip on costs, despite inflationary pressures, and remain on track to achieve our cost targets for 2022 and 2023," Chief Executive Noel Quinn said.
Net interest income improved to USD8.58 billion from USD6.61 billion, but net fee income fell to USD2.78 billion from USD3.32 billion. Net insurance premium income slipped to USD2.66 billion from USD2.72 billion. As a result, revenue decreased by 3.2% to USD11.62 billion from USD12.01 billion.
HSBC also said it has appointed Georges Elhedery as its new chief financial officer, effective from January 1. Previously, Elhedery was co-CEO of HSBC's Global Banking & Markets division, before taking a six-month sabbatical.
Elhedery will succeed Ewen Stevenson, who will step down as CFO on December 31 before leaving the company in April 2023.
The bank said this is part of long-term succession planning, as it approaches the end of its three-year transformation programme.
Whitbread was 1.8% lower.
The Premier Inn-owner swung to an interim profit and brought back dividends as the hotel sector recovered, while demand levels remain robust.
In the first half ended September 1, Whitbread said revenue more than doubled year-on-year to GBP1.35 billion from GBP661.6 million.
Compared to the first half of financial 2020 - the last financial period before the pandemic - revenue was 25% higher compared to GBP1.08 billion.
"The strong recovery in UK accommodation sales continued during the first half, and while Food & Beverage sales remained challenging and 5% behind pre-pandemic levels," Whitbread said.
Elsewhere in London, Genuit gave back 2.1%.
The Leeds, England-based plastic pipes manufacturer, formerly known as Polypipe, noted a "challenging" trading environment and said it expects "some slowing in line with pressures on the sector".
Genuit said revenue for the nine months ended September 30 amounted to GBP472 million, up 4.7% from GBP451 million a year ago.
Residential sales during the period were GBP297 million, up 6.2% on the prior year and Commercial & Infrastructure sales were GBP176 million, up 2.3% year-on-year.
However, Genuit said it has experienced "tougher trading conditions" over recent weeks and "has not seen the normal seasonal uplift in volumes in the latter part of [the third quarter]". This has impacted most parts of the business.
On AIM, Empire Metals soared 26% after a review of its Pitfield copper project, located in Western Australia, showed "all the hallmarks of a 'giant' copper mineralised system".
Empire noted the project could potentially contain "multiple sediment-hosted stratabound copper deposits".
Stocks in Asia ended mixed on Tuesday, with investors wary of developments in China after Xi at the weekend was handed another five-year term as leader and gave top jobs to a number of loyalists who back his strict zero-Covid strategy.
In China, the Shanghai Composite closed down just 1.27 points, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong gave back 0.5% - as both benchmarks gave back strong gains made earlier in the session. The Japanese Nikkei 225 index added 1.0%.
The euro traded at USD0.9858 early Tuesday, lower from USD0.9877 late Monday. Against the yen, the dollar was quoted at JPY148.98, firm versus JPY148.82.
The S&P/ASX 200 stock index in Sydney closed up 0.3%.
Gold was quoted at USD1,648.20 an ounce early Tuesday, down slightly from USD1,648.76 on Monday evening in London. Brent oil was trading at USD90.97 a barrel, up a touch from USD90.88 late Monday.
Still to come Tuesday, there is a US consumer confidence reading at 1400 BST after Bank of England Chief Economist Huw Pill speaks at 0900 BST.
By Paul McGowan; paulmcgowan@alliancenews.com
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