LONDON MARKET MIDDAY: China Tariff Reply Threat Sends Stocks Reeling

(Alliance News) - What started as a session of modest losses in London on Thursday accelerated as the day progressed after China threatened to retaliate if the US goes ahead with its latest tranche of trade tariffs.The FTSE 100 was down 106.66, or 1.5%, at 7,041.22. In early trade, London's blue-chip index had traded only around 10 points lower.The FTSE 250 was down 141.76 points, or 0.8%, at 18,589.29. The AIM All-Share was down 1.1% at 855.93.The Cboe UK 100 index was down 1.3% at 11,930.89. The Cboe UK 250 was down 0.7% at 16,558.87. The Cboe UK Small Companies was 0.3% lower at 10,814.41.In mainland Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris and the DAX 30 in Frankfurt were down 1.2% and 1.7% respectively in afternoon trade."In recent years August has often felt like a difficult month for global stock markets and 2019 is no exception as we reach the halfway point," said AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould."A string of negative news and worrying signals from the bond markets have got investors spooked as the FTSE 100 trades at multi-month lows," he added.Adding to Thursday's already jittery mood following some downbeat economic data on Wednesday - including Germany's economy contracting and slowing Chinese industrial production - was China threatening a response to the latest US announcement.Beijing will adopt "the necessary countermeasures" to the new tariffs, the Finance Ministry said Thursday.The US move to impose 10% tariffs on USD300 billion worth of Chinese goods violates agreements reached by the countries' leaders at G20 summits in Argentina and Japan over the past year, the Chinese ministry said.The new tariffs were initially set to take effect on September 1, but Washington this week decided to remove some items from the tariff list and postpone the enactment of some duties until December 1 to help Christmas shopping.Also hindering the FTSE 100 was a stronger pound, which rose after surprisingly upbeat UK retail sales and, in turn, weighed on the overseas earnings-heavy index. UK retail sales grew 0.2% in July month-on-month, the Office for National Statistics said on Thursday. This confounded consensus forecasts, as cited by FXStreet, for a 0.2% fall, though the growth was slower than the 1.0% rise posted in June.Annually, sales were up 3.3% in July with food stores being the only main sector to report a year-on-year fall, down 0.5%.Department stores posted growth in sales for the first time this year with a month-on-month rise of 1.6%, which came following six successive months of decline. Textile, clothing & footwear stores saw a 0.2% monthly fall and household good stores suffered a 5.4% dip.Sterling was quoted at USD1.2102 at midday, versus USD1.2063 late Wednesday.David Cheetham at XTB said UK consumers are showing "impressive resilience"."This is the 6th time this year that monthly figures have been better than expected, with strong growth of 6.9% seen in non-store retailing," he commented. Still to come Thursday, US retail sales are out at 1330 BST. Ahead of this, Wall Street is on track for a lower open, extending the previous session's heavy losses. The Dow Jones is pointed down 0.6%, the S&P 500 down 0.5% and the Nasdaq down 1.0%. On Wednesday, the Dow tumbled 800 points, or 3.1%. Turning back to London's FTSE 100, ex-dividend stocks were another reason the index found itself so deeply into the red at midday. Evraz was down 7.0%, Anglo American down 5.8% and Royal Dutch Shell 'A' and 'B' shares down 3.2% and 3.6% respectively. Royal Bank of Scotland, also ex-dividend Thursday, was further knocked by a downgrade as HSBC cut the stock to Hold from Buy, sending the lender down 9.5%.In the FTSE 250, a share price slide for Kaz Minerals offset well-received news from Plus500 of management stock purchases.For the six months ended June 30, Kaz Minerals posted a 4.2% year-on-year fall in revenue to USD1.05 billion. Pretax profit sunk by 19% to USD355.0 million. Earnings before interest, depreciation and amortisation were down 10% to USD620.0 million from USD690.0 million. The copper price per tonne averaged USD6,165, 12% down on the USD6,917 per tonne recorded in the same period last year. This contributed to revenue from the copper division falling 5.9% to USD849.0 million despite sales rising 2.6% to 144,400 tonnes. Kaz Minerals shares were down 11% at midday. Plus500 was sat atop the mid-cap index, up 8.5% after several senior executives including the chief executive and chief financial officer purchased more than GBP7 million worth of shares in the company.CEO Asaf Elimelech bought 30,460 shares at an average price of 683.674 per share, worth GBP208,300 in total. CFO Elad Even-Chen acquired 30,460 shares for 685.8p each, a total of GBP208,900.Plus500 Co-Founder Alon Gonen made the largest transaction of all, purchasing 987,553 shares at an average price of 681.0p per share, totalling GBP6.7 million.FirstGroup was another mid-cap riser, up 5.3% after hiring former Arriva chief executive David Martin as the new chair of its board, effective immediately.Arriva provides bus, coach and rail operations across 14 countries, and was bought by Deutsche Bahn in 2010. Martin is currently a non-executive director at waste management firm Biffa and served as interim chair for six months, and was previously a non-executive at Ladbrokes, now owned by GVC Holdings.Martin had been a pick for the FirstGroup board by activist investor Coast Capital a few months ago.Hermes-Golden, managed by Coast Capital, in mid-May called a general meeting to remove nearly half the FirstGroup board. However, Martin missed the deadline to confirm his plans to stand for election.London Midday is available to subscribers as an email newsletter. Contact info@alliancenews.com