Johnson Matthey Share News (JMAT)

(Alliance News) - The FTSE 100's losses extended into a second session on Tuesday, with investors waiting for the first of three appearances this week by US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. A profit warning from German chemicals firm BASF weighed on London-listed peers such as Johnson Matthey and Croda, while a share sale saw RHI Magnestia among the mid-cap losers on Tuesday.The large-cap index was 7.24 points lower, or 0.1%, at 7,542.03 Tuesday midday. The mid-cap FTSE 250 index was down 134.42 points, or 0.7%, at 19,447.05, while the AIM All-Share was 0.5% lower at 906.64.The Cboe UK 100 index was down 0.1% at 12,791.94. The Cboe UK 250 was 0.8% lower at 17,356.81, while the Cboe UK Small Companies slipped 0.3% to 11,253.33."The rally in stock markets has stalled again at the start of the trading week, as last week's jobs report continues to worry investors relying on rate cuts to sustain the rally," said Craig Erlam at Oanda."Interestingly, expectations for rate cuts remain bullish, even if the odds of a 50 basis point cut this month have been dramatically pared back," Erlam continued. "We'll have plenty of opportunity to see whether they're justified this week, as Fed Chair Powell makes numerous appearances."Powell's first appearance comes at 1345 BST on Tuesday, when he speaks in Boston. This is followed by the Fed chief testifying to the US Congress on Wednesday and Thursday. The rate-setting Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meets at the end of the month.Ahead of Powell's remarks on Tuesday, Wall Street is on course for a lower open, with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 both seen down 0.5% and the Nasdaq 100 set to shed 0.7%.Downing Street has insisted the British ambassador to the US has the prime minister's full support despite Donald Trump saying he would no longer work with him.Theresa May stood by Kim Darroch, who enraged the US president by describing his administration as "inept" in leaked advice.In an explosive series of tweets, Trump accused May of making a "mess" of Brexit. He said his administration would no longer deal with Darroch, while the "good news" for the UK was that it would soon have a new prime minister.In the race to take May's place, Tory party leadership candidates Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt are preparing to take part in their only scheduled head-to-head encounter of the Tory leadership campaign.The two contenders to succeed Theresa May as party leader and UK prime minister will appear on a live ITV debate at 8 pm on Tuesday. Ballot papers started going out last week to the party's estimated 180,000 members, and many will already have voted, meaning that the potential for the debate to alter the course of the contest may be limited.The pound was quoted at USD1.2458 at midday, down from USD1.2508 late Monday, trading around its worst levels since April 2017 when excluding a flash crash at the beginning of 2019. "There's not really any major new catalysts for this depreciation with it likely due to ongoing softening in economic data with tomorrow's release of Q2 GDP expected to show the first quarterly decline in 7 years," said David Cheetham at XTB. He added: "The raised diplomatic tensions between the US and UK after the recent email leaks is certainly not helping matters, and could also be playing its part in this latest leg lower."In mainland Europe, the CAC 40 index in Paris and DAX 30 in Frankfurt were down 0.5% and 1.1% respectively in afternoon trade.The German DAX was suffering more than European peers thanks to BASF, which slid 5.4% in Frankfurt on a profit warning.For the three months ended June, the chemical firm expects earnings before interest & tax to narrow sharply to EUR500 million from EUR1.9 billion a year prior. Excluding special items, Ebit is forecast to halve to EUR1.0 billion from EUR2.0 billion the year prior. "Significantly weaker-than-expected industrial production negatively impacted volumes and margin development at BASF," the company explained in a statement. "At around 1.5% according to current estimates, growth in industrial production in the first half of 2019 was much slower than expected." BASF now forecasts full-year Ebit before special items to be as much as 30% lower than the year prior. Previously, BASF had forecast growth of between 1% and 10%.The update from BASF hit London-listed specialty chemical firms, with Johnson Matthey down 2.5% and Croda International falling 2.4%.Just Eat was another stock keeping the FTSE 100 in the red at midday, down 3.8% after Berenberg downgraded the takeaway platform to Hold from Buy. Miner Glencore slipped on a broker downgrade, falling 2.2% after Societe Generale lowered the London-Johannesburg dual-listed firm to Hold from Buy.Bobbing at the top of the index was Ocado, up 8.5% despite posting a widened interim loss as investors focused on an increase in deal fees. For the six months ended June 3, Ocado's pretax loss widened dramatically to GBP142.8 million from just GBP13.6 million a year prior. This was despite revenue rising 11% to GBP882.3 million from GBP795.3 million, as retail revenue grew 10% to GBP811.5 million from GBP736.6 million.However, Ocado Solutions revenue was up 21% to GBP70.8 million, while fees from licensing deals shot up 36% to GBP122.7 million. Of this, international fees almost doubled to GBP46.7 million. "For all the criticisms of the business, Ocado is doing what it said it would do. It continues to sign up overseas partners to power their online food operations and the UK operations have been given a new lease of life by striking the joint venture deal with Marks & Spencer," commented Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.FTSE 250-listed RHI Magnesita dipped 5.0% to 4,676.00 pence after funds managed by GP Investments sold shares in the refractory products maker worth almost GBP100 million.GP Investments sold 2.2 million shares at a price of 4,600p each, for GBP99.2 million. The shares are worth 4.4% of RHI's share capital, and represent half of the original stake held by GP Investments.London Midday is available to subscribers as an email newsletter. Contact info@alliancenews.com