Next Share News (NXT)

LONDON (Alliance News) - Soft trade data from China was weighing on London stock prices midday Monday, with commodity-exposed mining stocks bearing the brunt of the selling. Meanwhile, the pound was firm amid a late push by UK Prime Minister Theresa May to drum up support for her Brexit deal ahead of Tuesday's vote by Parliament. The FTSE 100 index of large caps was down 71.56 points, or 1.0%, at 6,846.62 while the FTSE 250 180.55 points lower, or 1.0%, at 18,361.76. The AIM All-Share was down 0.4% at 906.58.The Cboe UK 100 was down 1.0% at midday at 11,622.69, while the Cboe UK 250 was 0.8% lower at 16,439.30. However, the Cboe UK Small Companies was up 0.2% at 11,216.05.In mainland Europe, the CAC 40 index in Paris was down 1.0%, while the DAX 30 in Frankfurt shed 0.9%."Asian stocks closed lower and European gauges started the week on the back foot following Chinese data showing a 4.4% decline in the country's exports in December," said Fiona Cincotta, senior market analyst at City Index. The analyst also noted the upcoming Brexit vote in parliament this week. "Brexit temperature is ratcheting up as the Tuesday deadline for the vote on the prime minister's Brexit proposal nears," Cincotta commented. "Despite sterling's Brexit woes, the dollar proved not much of an opponent, being sold off after the Federal Reserve indicated last week that it may abandon plans to raise rates this year, or if it doesn't, to proceed at a much slower pace than initially planned." The pound was quoted at USD1.2863 at midday, higher compared to USD1.2835 late Friday. The prime minister gave a speech Monday morning a day before the critical Commons vote on her EU exit plan to urge MPs to consider the "consequences" of their actions on the faith of British people in democracy.With less than 36 hours to go until the long-awaited vote, May said that, based on last week's votes in Parliament, she now believes MPs blocking Brexit is a more likely outcome than leaving without a deal.In a letter to May, the EU reaffirmed assurances that it will work hard to avoid the need to trigger controversial backstop provisions following Brexit. The pledges, made by EU leaders in December, "have a legal value" in line with their authority to "define directions and priorities for the EU at the highest level", says the letter signed by European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.Elsewhere, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn warned the prime minister that he would trigger a vote of no confidence in her government "soon", as he hinted that Article 50 may have to be extended if his party came into power."Clearly if Theresa May's deal is voted down, clearly if a general election takes place and a Labour government comes in - an election would take place February, March time - clearly there's only a few weeks between that and the leave date, there would have to be time for those negotiations," he told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show.Wall Street was pointed to a lower open on Monday as Citigroup kicks off the fourth-quarter earnings season for US banks before the bell.The Dow Jones Industrials and S&P 500 indices were both called down 1.0%, while the Nasdaq Composite was headed 1.2% lower.Miners in London were among the stocks dragging down the FTSE 100 on Monday after weak trade data from China overnight. Exports dropped 4.4% year-on-year in December, figures from the General Administration of Customs showed on Monday. That was in contrast to the 3% gain economists had predicted. Imports decreased 7.6% from a year ago, defying expectations for a 5% rise. For 2018 as whole, exports grew 9.9% imports rose 15.8%, resulting in a trade surplus of USD351.8 billion, which was over 30% lower than a year ago."The import slowdown is consistent with other signs that growth in China's domestic economy continued to weaken. Indeed, we think overall economic growth slowed further in Q4 2018 and remains under pressures from weaker exports, slow credit growth and cooling real estate activity in H1 2019," said Louis Kuijs, head of Asia economics at Oxford Economics. Anglo American and Antofagasta both were down 2.2% at midday, while Glencore was off 1.4%.Next also was among the fallers on Monday, shares in the clothing and homewares retailer down 3.0% after Credit Suisse cut its rating on the stock to Underperform from NeutralPaddy Power Betfair was hurt by a broker rating downgrade as well, down 2.9% after Barclays lowered the bookmaking stock to Equal Weight from Overweight.Shares in FTSE 250 constituent Premier Oil were down 10% at midday after the company said it has not made a firm decision whether or not to bid for assets of US oil major Chevron, which are currently being marketed.On Sunday, The Times reported that Premier Oil was considering a fundraise to buy a package of North Sea oil and gas fields worth around USD1.5 billion from Chevron. According to The Times, Premier Oil is intending to fund the acquisition through a rights issue or share placing, and could also consider selling all or part of its Latin American business.PageGroup was down 5.3% despite expecting annual profit in line with expectations, as AJ Bell noted that fourth-quarter growth slowed on a year before.Gross profit for 2018 stood at GBP815.0 million, up from GBP711.6 million in 2017. Operating profit is anticipated to be in line with company-compiled consensus estimate of GBP141.8 million.However, Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, highlighted that growth in the fourth quarter was slower than a year before. In the fourth quarter of 2018, temporary job gross profit grew 9.8% compared to 14% in the same period a year before. "Brexit uncertainty continues to be a drag on UK operations with a meagre 2.1% gross profit growth in the final quarter of 2018, year-on-year, and its growth in China has slowed quarter-on-quarter because of concerns related to the country's trade war with the US," Mould added.Countryside Properties was down 4.8% after JPMorgan cut the housebuilder to Underweight from Neutral. Comfortably the best mid-cap performer at the start of the week was JD Sports Fashion, up 9.0% as it raised its annual profit outlook. The sports fashion retailer said total sales were up 15% across all the company's global shop brands in the 48 weeks to January 5, excluding acquisitions the Finish Line in the US and Sport Zone in Iberia.Like-for-like sales in the same period were up by "more than 5%", JD said, driven by a positive performance around Black Friday and Christmas.This led the company to raise its guidance for the current financial year, which ends on February 2. JD Sports now sees annual pretax profit at the upper end of market expectations, which ranges between GBP325 million and GBP352 million. Last year, JD Sports's profit was GBP294.5 million.