ULE.L Share News (ULE)

LONDON (Alliance News) - Stocks in London ended lower on Thursday as the European Central Bank sent a chill through markets across the globe after slashing its growth forecasts and indicated interest rates would remain at historically low levels. The FTSE 100 index closed down 38.45 points, or 0.5% at 7,157.55. The FTSE 250 ended down 175.49 points, or 0.9%, at 19,183.82, and the AIM All-Share closed down 6.70 points, or 0.7% at 909.86.The Cboe UK 100 ended down 0.7% at 12,136.32, the Cboe UK 250 closed down down 1.1% at 17,144.80, and the Cboe Small Companies ended 0.5% lower at 11,112.76.In Paris the CAC 40 ended down 0.4%, while the DAX 30 in Frankfurt ended down 0.6%. "It has been a volatile session in Europe today. The European Central Bank announced a new series of targeted loans and the scheme will come into effect in September, and said it now expects rates to remain on hold throughout 2019. The move initially propelled the major eurozone equity markets into positive territory, but the move was shorted lived. The underlying message from the ECB was negative, and that played out in the stock market. The FTSE 100 has been hit by a sell-off in mining and financial stocks," said CMC Markets analyst David Madden. On the London Stock Exchange, Informa ended as the best blue chip performer, up 2.4%, after the events and business information company reported a strong increase in annual revenue, rising 35%, which helped deliver an increase in profit. The company's revenue jumped to GBP2.37 billion from GBP1.76 billion a year ago. This led to pretax profit rising 5.2% to GBP282.1 million from GBP268.2 million.Spirax-Sarco Engineering closed up 2.3% after the valves and pumps maker raised its 2018 dividend as profit and revenue both beat market forecasts in a "strong" industry-beating set of results.In 2018, pretax profit widened 50% to GBP288.8 million from GBP192.5 million the year prior, as revenue rose 15% to GBP1.15 billion from GBP998.7 million, up 7% on an organic basis. For the full year, the dividend was increased 14% to 100.0p from 87.5p the year earlier. According to company-compiled figures, analysts had anticipated the dividend to jump to 98.7p in 2018.National Grid ended 2.3% higher after the UK power lines operator agreed to acquire Geronimo Energy, based in Minneapolis, a company which it said has developed over 2,200 megawatts of wind and solar projects, in a deal worth USD100 million.Melrose Industries closed up 2.1% after the industrial turnaround specialist said its results for 2018 were ahead of the board's previous expectations eight months after the acquisition of engineer GKN.Melrose posted revenue of GBP8.61 billion in 2018, well above the GBP2.09 billion reported in 2017, though its pretax loss widened to GBP550 million from GBP28 million year-on-year. This was mainly due to higher finance costs as well as restructuring, acquisition, and amortisation costs. Excluding its GKN acquisition, Melrose's adjusted operating profit was GBP847 million versus GBP279 million in 2017.At the other end of the large cap index, NMC Health ended the worst performer, down 11%, despite the UAE-focused private healthcare firm reporting a strong performance in 2018. For 2018, NMC reported a 22% rise in pretax profit to USD256.9 million from USD210.4 million in 2017. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation increased by 38% to USD487.4 million from USD353.4 million the prior year, on revenue that grew 28% to USD2.06 billion from USD1.60 billion. NMC Health's Ebitda was just above group expectations reiterated in December, which guided the figure at USD480 million, as was revenue growth which was expected to be 24%.Persimmon ended in second spot, down 7.5%, while Evraz closed down 4.8% after the shares went ex-dividend, meaning new buyers no longer qualify for the latest payout. Rio Tinto closed down 7.5% after Societe Generale downgraded the Anglo-Australian miner to Sell from Hold. In addition, Rio shares went ex-dividend. "With positive changes to our valuation methodology offsetting more conservative assumptions on costs in the iron ore and aluminium segments (reflecting indications of stronger cost pressures in the second half of 2019 than we previously expected). With the implied 12 month total shareholder return in negative territory, we downgrade our rating to Sell," analysts at SocGen said. Fellow Anglo-Australian miner BHP closed down 3.0% after SocGen cut the stock to Hold from Buy.Schroders closed down 5.9% after the fund manager reported a drop in profit and assets in 2018 as the company undergoes restructuring to focus on areas of growth. Schroders reported that pretax profit decreased by 15% to GBP649.9 million from GBP760.2 million in 2017. Schroders ended 2018 with GBP363.5 billion in assets under management, down 6.7% from GBP389.8 billion at the start. Market consensus had forecast Schroders would end 2018 with GBP413.3 billion in assets under management. The asset management unit saw GBP11.20 billion in net outflows, swung from GBP7.60 billion in inflows in 2017, with Schroders blaming "macro and political issues" which "impacted investor sentiment".In the FTSE 250, Ultra Electronics closed up 11% after JPMorgan raised the defence contractor to Overweight from Neutral due to its low valuation and improving outlook. The investment bank also sees strong upside potential in Ultra shares. The euro fell sharply against the dollar quoted at USD1.1236 at the European equities close, down from USD1.1318 late Wednesday, after the European Central Bank slashed its growth forecasts and warned over the "threat of protectionism".The single currency fell to an intraday low of USD1.1230 in afternoon trade, its lowest level in four months. The central bank cut the eurozone's growth forecasts for 2019 and 2020 to 1.1% and 1.6%, from the December projection of 1.7%, while the 2021 estimate was held at 2.1%.The inflation forecast was slashed to 1.2% for 2019 and 1.5% for 2020, from the previous estimates of 1.6% and 1.7%, respectively.ECB President Mario Draghi struck a cautious tone on eurozone economy, saying that weakening in economic data pointed to a moderation in growth through the current year, and downgraded inflation and growth outlook for this year and next."Dovish Draghi did it again. Over the past 15 months the euro has fallen after every ECB meeting. Today was no different. The ECB substantially revising down growth projections, whilst unveiling measures to revive the bloc's ailing economy, and pledging to keep rates on hold until 2020, hit the euro hard," said City Index analyst Fiona Cincotta.Draghi said the persistence of uncertainties related to geopolitical factors, the threat of protectionism and vulnerabilities in emerging markets has appeared to weigh on economic sentiment.At its monetary policy meeting in Frankfurt, the Governing Council left the interest rates on the main refinancing operations, the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility unchanged at 0.00%, 0.25% and -0.40%, respectively.The bank announced the launch of a new series of targeted longer-term refinancing operations, or TLTRO-III, starting in September and ending in March 2021, each with a maturity of two years.The purpose of the liquidity support is to prevent an unwarranted tightening of credit conditions for businesses and households in the wider economy.The central bank also indicated that it expects to leave interest rates at current levels at least through the end of 2019 - beyond Draghi's tenure, making him one of only a handful of major central bank chiefs not to raise rates in the modern era."The measures as such are not such a big surprise but the timing of the announcement is. In our view, it is an attempt to stay ahead of the curve and to avoid unwarranted tightening of the ECB's monetary stance. It is not an attempt to provide additional easing but rather an attempt to keep the balance sheet stable for a longer-than-expected period. Any rate hikes for this year are definitely off the table," noted analysts at ING. "At the same time, however, today's announcements have some flavour of panic as the ECB's base case scenario still foresees a gradual recovery and the 2020 and 2021 forecasts were hardly revised downwards," ING added.Stocks in New York were sharply lower at the London equities close in the wake of the ECB's dovish announcements. The DJIA was down 1.1%, the S&P 500 index down 0.9% and the Nasdaq Composite down 1.2%.The pound was quoted at USD1.3096 at the London equities close, lower than USD1.3142 at the close Wednesday, amid strength in the greenback. UK house prices in February grew on an annual, quarterly and monthly basis for the first time since October 2018, the latest Halifax House Price Index showed.UK house prices rose 2.8% on an annual basis in the three months to February, growing at a faster rate than the 0.8% increase reported for January. Meanwhile, house prices rose 5.9% on a month-on-month basis and in the December-to-February quarter grew 1.8% on the previous three months. Brent oil was quoted at USD66.06 a barrel at the London equities close, flat against USD66.06 at the close Wednesday. Gold was quoted at USD1,285.30 an ounce at the London equities close, flat against USD1,285.88 late Wednesday.The economic events calendar on Friday has Germany factory orders at 0700 GMT, Italy producer prices at 1000 GMT and the US jobs report for February at 1330 GMT. The UK corporate calendar on Friday has annual results from thermal processing services Bodycote and building products supplier SIG.