LONDON MARKET OPEN: Gold Continues Surge As Mood Remains Cautious

(Alliance News) - The FTSE 100 started Wednesday's session broadly flat, with caution around US-China relations and share price slips for stocks such as Glencore and Standard Life Aberdeen preventing the blue-chip index from nudging into the green.Amid the subdued market atmosphere, gold edged upward nearer to the USD1,500 per ounce mark, boosting the likes of Fresnillo and Hochschild Mining. The large-cap index was just 0.81 of a point lower at 7,170.88 in opening trade on Wednesday. The FTSE 250 index was up 51.64 points, or 0.3%, at 18,897.16 while the AIM All-Share was up 0.7% at 901.90.The Cboe UK 100 index was down 0.1% at 12,150.96. The Cboe UK 250 was up 0.1% at 16,831.68, while the Cboe UK Small Companies was down 0.1% at 10,950.82.At the bottom of the FTSE 100 was miner Glencore, dipping 3.8% as it missed earnings consensus for the first half. Further, Glencore is to put the Mutanda mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on care & maintenance by the end of 2019 due to reduced cobalt prices.Glencore's adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation for the six months to end-June came in at USD5.58 billion, down 32% on a year before, and well short of analyst consensus of USD5.94 billion.Standard Life Aberdeen slipped 3.3% as it reported a slowdown in net outflows, though said it is operating in a tough environment. Assets under management were up 5% to GBP577.5 billion at June 30, with net outflows at GBP15.9 billion, lower than GBP16.9 billion a year ago."Encouragingly this was helped by an improvement in the investment performance of key strategies with reduced net outflows from Absolute Return compared to H2 2018. However, despite this improvement in investment performance, demand for equities remains low across the wider market and we continued to see elevated equity net outflows," said Standard Life.Gross inflows slipped to GBP36.5 billion from GBP37.4 million.Income from continuing operations for the first half of the year came in at GBP1.68 billion, up from GBP1.08 billion a year ago, with pretax profit shooting up to GBP629 million from GBP127 million.Looking ahead, Standard Life said that the current environment for asset management is tough as macroeconomic and political uncertainty persists. However, the company said its strong balance sheet and cost controls should allow it to invest for growth and generate sustainable dividends.Flutter Entertainment was up 1.7% after the bookmaker reported a solid performance in the US in the first half. Revenue for the half was up 18% to GBP1.02 billion, though pretax profit fell 24% to GBP81 million. Online revenue was up 8%, while Retail revenue fell 4% as solid growth in sports was offset by a reduction in machine revenue following changes to maximum fixed-odds betting terminal stakes.Flutter, formerly known as Paddy Power Betfair, said its annual guidance is in line with market expectations, with annual underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation - excluding the US - expected between GBP420 million to GBP440 million. In the US, customer acquisition investment is likely to lead to an expected Ebitda loss of GBP55 million.US revenue in the half-year more than doubled to GBP160 million from just GBP61 million a year ago. In the UK, meanwhile, revenue slipped to GBP421.5 million from GBP426.1 million year-on-year.Gold miner Fresnillo was among the blue-chip gainers, up 1.2% as the safe haven precious metal continued to climb amid investor caution towards equities. Gold was quoted at USD1,489.46 an ounce, versus just USD1,472.50 at the London market close on Tuesday as the precious metal traded around its best price in over six years. FTSE 250-listed Hochschild Mining was up 1.4%, with mid-cap peer Acacia Mining up 1.2%. "Since this month [gold] is up over 5% and traders have no doubt that the resistance of USD1,500 which is more of a psychological level is going to melt in the coming days," said Naeem Aslam at ThinkMarkets."As long as the trade war remains on the table, and no one bothers to resolve it makers it (because of of their own ego issues), this situation will continue to impact the sentiment in the markets and traders will have no choice but to park their funds in gold."Gold's meteoric rise comes as tensions between the US and China have significantly heightened in recent days. The yuan breached the key 7.0 threshold against the dollar on Monday - days after the US announced plans to impose fresh tariffs on Chinese imports from September 1 - prompting Washington to officially brand Beijing a "currency manipulator".China's central bank said Tuesday it is "resolutely opposed" to such a label, and the bank's governor Yi Gang has long vowed it would not engage in a competitive devaluation.In Asia on Wednesday, stocks were mixed. In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index ended down 0.3%. In China, the Shanghai Composite finished 0.3% lower, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong is down 0.1% in late trade.In economic data Wednesday, UK house prices dipped for the second month in a row as the market continues to "tread water", Halifax said.On a monthly basis, house prices were down 0.2% in July. Year-on-year, prices were up 4.1%, though Halifax noted the annual change figure benefited from a backdrop of relatively low growth in the corresponding period in 2018.The average house price in July stood at GBP236,120, down from GBP236,680 in June.In Paris, the CAC 40 was up 0.9% while the DAX 30 in Frankfurt was up 0.6% in early trade in mainland Europe.In Germany, industrial production slumped 1.5% month-on-month in June. On an annual basis, this fall was 5.2%.ING said it would describe Wednesday's industrial production report as "devastating"."Today's data also shows that we should prepare for contraction in the German economy in the second quarter, unless exports bring an unexpected surprise on Friday," added ING.