LONDON MARKET OPEN: Rolls-Royce Defies Down Market On Restructuring

LONDON (Alliance News) - Stocks in London opened lower on Thursday tracking global counterparts lower, after the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates on Wednesday and pointed to four further rate hikes this year as opposed to three previously expected. The FTSE 100 index was down 0.6%, or 43.42points, at 7,660.29 early Thursday. The mid-cap FTSE 250 index was down 0.7%, 144.65 points, at 21,088.22. The AIM All-Share index was down 0.2% at 1,099.22.The Cboe UK 100 was down 0.6% at 12,993.64, the Cboe UK 250 was down 0.5% at 19,323.91, and the Cboe UK Small Companies was down 0.2% at 12,889.76.On the London Stock Exchange, Rolls-Royce Holdings was the best blue chip performer at the open, up 3.0% after the jet engine maker announced plans to cut around 4,600 corporate and support jobs, predominantly in the UK, as part on a new business restructuring plan to save GBP400 million per annum by end of 2020.Rolls-Royce, which in January announced a plan to separate the business into three different units, expects the new restructuring programme to deliver improved returns, higher margins and increased cash flow.Under the restructuring programme, the company aims to remove corporate management layers, complexity and duplication, including within its core engineering division, and replace a centralised decision and control structure by empowered business units having clearer accountabilities, and decision-making powers.The total cash cost of the restructuring programme is expected to be around GBP500 million, which will be incurred across 2018, 2019 and 2020.Rolls-Royce also said current trading remains in-line with full year expectations set out in March.GlaxoSmithKline was second best performer up 1.0% after the pharmaceutical company said its HIV joint venture ViiV Healthcare reported positive results from its phase III GEMINI study programme. The phase III studies for dolutegravir and lamivudine HIV medicines demonstrated the ability to control HIV, with a two-drug regimen in treatment naive HIV-1 infected adults. ViiV is a joint venture between Glaxo, US drugs giant Pfizer Inc and Japan's Shionogi.The GEMINI studies are part of ViiV Healthcare's clinical trial programme for two-drug regimens that seeks to address long-term toxicity concerns of people living with HIV by reducing the number of medicines used in their treatment, the company said.At the other end of the large cap index, Pearson was the worst blue chip performer down 3.9% after Barclays cut the educational publisher to Underweight from Equal Weight.RELX was down 2.1% after UBS downgraded the Anglo-Dutch business information and events company to Sell from Neutral. The pound was firm against the dollar, quoted at USD1.3394 compared to USD1.3370 at the London equities close Wednesday. In domestic political news, UK Prime Minister Theresa May won a crucial vote late Wednesday against an amendment to her Brexit legislation that would have required her to negotiate Britain's continued access to the EU customs union. Lawmakers in the Commons, parliament's elected main house, voted by 325 to 298 against the amendment, after May promised to seek a new "customs arrangement" in a compromise ahead of the vote. Following a second day of debate on her EU Withdrawal Bill, May also won votes against committing Britain to join the European Economic Area and against seeking full access to the EU single market after Brexit.The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate to a range of 1.75 to 2.00%, in line with expectations, as unemployment declines and inflation moves to the desired target.The vote of the Federal Open Market Committee was 8-0.The quarter-of-a-percentage-point hike is the second time this year the Fed has increased the rate and comes as the labour market continues to strengthen and economic activity rises at a solid rate.The Fed signalled further rate raises this year, which could lead to dollar strengthening.In a surprise move, the central bank now projects four interest rate hikes in 2018, rather than three. The Fed also dropped wording about rates being "below levels" in the long run."Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in May indicates that the labor market has continued to strengthen and that economic activity has been rising at a solid rate. Job gains have been strong, on average, in recent months, and the unemployment rate has declined," the Fed's statement read."This pretty hawkish statement wasn't enough to prevent the dollar from slipping into the red, the currency falling against the pound, the euro and the yen. That's arguably more to do with the strength of the greenback's performance this year and the long-signalled nature of Wednesday's hike, however, than any real sense of disappointment," said Spreadex analyst Connor Campbell.In the US on Wednesday, Wall Street ended lower, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.5%, S&P 500 down 0.4% and Nasdaq Composite ending 0.1% down.In US corporate news, cable company Comcast is seeking to pry Twenty-First Century Fox away from The Walt Disney Co, as it made a bid of USD65 billion to thwart Disney's effort to take over the media company on Wednesday. Rupert Murdoch's Fox will have to decide in a board vote on July 10 on which offer it prefers. Disney had previously bid USD52.40 billion for the media wing of Fox, which would not include its news or sports elements, including the flagship Fox News.Comcast has separately announced a pre-conditional all-cash firm offer for the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Sky. Shares in Sky were up 0.4%. Also in focus is the European Central Bank's policy meeting in Riga, Latvia on Thursday, announcing its interest rate decision at 1245 BST. This will be followed by a press conference with ECB President Mario Draghi at 1330 BST."We suspect President Draghi will give a strong hint that the ECB is looking to end the bond-buying programme, but that full details will be provided in the next meeting in July. In the first instance, markets will focus on whether the ECB's forward guidance for the asset purchase programme will be changed," said analysts at Lloyds. In mainland Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris was down 0.5% while the DAX 30 in Frankfurt was down 0.6% early Thursday.The euro was higher quoted at USD1.1802 against USD1.1773 at the European equities close Wednesday. Still to come in the economic calendar are UK and US retail sales data at 0930 BST and 1330 BST respectively. The Japanese Nikkei 225 index closed down 0.8%. In China, the Shanghai Composite closed down 0.2%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong is down 1.1%.Industrial production in China was up 6.8% on year in May, the National Bureau of Statistics said. That was shy of expectations for 7.0%, which would have been unchanged from the April reading. The bureau also said that retail sales were up an annual 8.5% in May - also missing expectations for 9.6% and down from 9.4% in the previous month. Meanwhile, China's central bank retained borrowing costs after the US Fed decided to hike its rate for the second time this year. The People's Bank of China maintained the 7-day reverse repo at 2.55% and the rate on 14-day tenor at 2.70%. The benchmark one-year lending rate has been unchanged since October 2015.