LONDON (Alliance News) - Stocks in London got off to a lower start on Monday, with the FTSE 100 coming off from its highest close of the year so far, on an eerily quiet day in the way of economic releases.
The only notable economic release still to come Monday is Italian industrial output at 0900 BST. William Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, will make a speech at 1425 BST.
Amoung UK companies, Cranswick was the second biggest gainer in the FTSE 250, up 3.9%, after pork and poultry producer said it has bought CCL Holdings and its wholly-owned subsidiary Crown Chicken from the Thacker family and management for GBP40 million.
Crown is a poultry producer based in East Anglia in England. In 2015, it made revenue of GBP83.8 million and adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of GBP6.6 million. Cranswick said it expects the acquisition to be "modestly earnings enhancing" in the current year and will fund the purchase using its existing bank facilities.
The FTSE 100 was down 0.3%, or 21.60 points, to 6,182.81. The FTSE 250 was off 0.2% to 16,791.14 and the AIM All-Share was up 0.1% at 720.11. In Europe, the French CAC 40 was down 0.7% and the German DAX 30 was down 0.9%
In Asia Monday, the Nikkei 225 index ended down 0.4%, while the Shanghai Composite closed up 1.6%. The Hang Seng index is down 0.1%.
Consumer prices in China rose 2.3% year-on-year in March, the National Bureau of Statistics said. That was unchanged from the February reading, although it was shy of expectations for an increase of 2.4%. On a monthly basis, inflation fell 0.4% after jumping 1.6% in the previous month.
The bureau also said that producer prices were down 4.3% in March versus forecasts for 4.6% decline, having falling 4.9% in the previous month.
Elsewhere on the London Stock Exchange, motor and home insurer Direct Line Insurance Group was the worst performer in the FTSE 100, down 1.8%, after it was downgraded by Barclays to Equal Weight from Overweight. FTSE 250-listed temporary power company Aggreko was one of the biggest mid-cap fallers, down 2.4%, after UBS cut it to Sell from Neutral.
XP Power said trading in the first quarter of 2016 was strong after reporting a rise in revenue and growth to its order intake, allowing the company to increase its quarterly dividend.
The developer and manufacturer of power control components to the electronics industry said revenue in the first quarter to the end of March rose 10% to GBP28.2 million from GBP25.6 million a year earlier whilst order intake increased 9% to GBP30.3 million from GBP27.9 million. On a constant currency basis, revenue was 6% higher from the previous year whilst order intake rose 4%.
XP Power said its dividend for the first quarter will amount to 14.0 pence per share, a 7.7% increase from the 13.0 pence per share paid in the first quarter of 2015. The stock traded up 3.8%.
By Neil Thakrar; neilthakrar@alliancenews.com; @NeilThakrar1
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Xp Power (XPP)
Cranswick (CWK)
Direct Line (DLG)