LONDON MARKET MIDDAY: Upcoming G20 Summit Wariness Prompts Pullback

(Alliance News) - Caution ahead of the G20 summit in Japan continued to prevail on Thursday, with early gains for London equities being wiped out as the session progressed. Ex-dividend stocks and a downgrade for property portal Rightmove were weighing on the FTSE 100, while the FTSE 250 was seeing a drag from engineer Senior.The FTSE 100 index was down 30.28 points, or 0.4%, at 7,386.11 Thursday midday, having traded as high as 7,439.43 in the morning. The FTSE 250 was down 23.24 points, or 0.1%, at 19,237.15, while the AIM All-Share was up 0.1% at 924.54.The Cboe UK 100 index was down 0.4% at 12,529.80. The Cboe UK 250 was flat at 17,213.48, while the Cboe UK Small Companies down 0.5% at 11,387.42.In mainland Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris and DAX 30 in Frankfurt were down 0.5% and 0.1% respectively in afternoon trade. "Upward progress has been almost absent this week, as the excitement of last week and the shift to dovish stances by Mario Draghi and the Federal Reserve has given way to nervousness about the outlook for a US-China deal," said Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG.He continued: "Investors will recall that equities rallied in the wake of the November G20, but then dropped sharply - there will be fears that a rerun of this is in the offing, particularly if Trump comes away from Osaka determined to impose a significant round of new tariffs on the Chinese economy."US President Donald Trump's comments on Wednesday also added to caution over whether the two superpowers will reach some form of agreement over the weekend. Trump said he would impose "very substantial additional tariffs" on Chinese goods if the US and China are not able to reach a trade deal. The deal must include intellectual property theft protections, balancing trade levels and the opening of Chinese markets - the goals set by Washington from the start of the negotiations, Trump added.The summit formally opens on Friday in the western Japanese city of Osaka and will last for two days. The eagerly awaited meeting between Trump and Xi will take place on Saturday. "From a markets perspective, a complete breakdown may spur some near-term weakness but with central banks waiting in the wings and prepared to cut rates, they may continue to be well supported," said Craig Erlam at Oanda.Ahead of the New York open, the Dow Jones is pointed down 0.4%, the S&P 500 up 0.1% and the Nasdaq on track for a 0.2% rise.In the US economic calendar, a first quarter GDP reading is at 1330 BST, while in the corporate calendar sportswear giant Nike releases earnings after the market close. In Europe, German inflation is due out at 1300 BST. Already released, the European Commission's Economic Sentiment Indicator fell by 1.9 points to 103.3 in June for the euro area, and in the EU as a whole this was down 1.5 points to 102.3. ING said this data "rounds out a weak quarter" for the bloc, and can be seen as justification for action from the European Central Bank next month."With about a month to go before the July ECB meeting, evidence of weak growth environment keeps mounting. It's not just a weak growth picture that the ESI paints today which is concerning for the ECB, but take a look at selling price expectations, which have dropped significantly for manufacturing and remained stable in the service sector," said Bert Colijn, ING economist."This adds to the bleak outlook for price growth in the coming months and without significant improvements in data in the coming month, the ECB stands ready to act," he added. In London, property portal Rightmove was the worst blue-chip performer, slipping 3.3% after UBS cut the stock to Sell from Neutral. Also among the session's losers were ex-dividend stocks, including British American Tobacco, down 2.6%, British Land Co, down 2.1%, and Experian, down 2.0%. Gaining altitude was British Airways parent International Consolidated Airlines, up 1.9%, while mid-cap airline easyJet rose 5.2%. This was as Brent prices retreated to USD65.77 a barrel on Thursday, down from USD66.60 late Wednesday.Brent has had an impressive rally over the past fortnight as tensions between the US and Iran have risen, going from trading just above USD60 a barrel to near USD67, before pulling back slightly on Thursday.Another gainer was Kingfisher, up 2.9% as it picked a senior Carrefour executive to be the DIY retailer's next boss.Carrefour Asia boss Thierry Garnier will replace outgoing Kingfisher chief executive officer, Veronique Laury, in the autumn.The FTSE 100-listed company said Garnier has spent 20 years in senior roles at Carrefour, the French hypermarket firm. He currently serves as the head of Carrefour Asia, where he is responsible for over 350 stores in China and Taiwan.On Sunday, Carrefour announced it had agreed to sell an 80% stake in Carrefour China to Chinese group Suning.com for an enterprise value of EUR1.4 billion.Senior was the worst performer in the FTSE 250, down 11% after Barclays downgraded the engineer to Equal Weight from Overweight. Meanwhile, Serco rose 4.1% after the outsourcer updated the market on a strong first half performance.The government-services outsourcing firm anticipates 20% growth in underlying trading profit to GBP50 million, with revenue growth of 6% to near GBP1.5 billion. Organic growth is expected at 4%, driven by the Americas and Asia Pacific divisions. Order intake has been "extremely strong", Serco said, driven by the signing of contracts for asylum accommodation and support services in the UK.Shares in car dealer Pendragon were down 4.3% after parting ways with Chief Executive Mark Herbert after just three months in the role. Herbert became permanent boss of Pendragon on April 1, replacing 29-year company veteran Trevor Finn, and will now be leaving at the end of June by "mutual agreement".Pendragon a fortnight ago warned that it would post a small underlying loss for 2019 due to challenging market conditions and excess stock across the business.