LONDON MARKET OPEN: Stocks Suffer On Trump Tariffs; Outlook Drags RBS

(Alliance News) - Share prices in London were struggling Friday morning following US President Donald Trump's decision late Thursday to impose new tariffs on Chinese goods worth up to USD300 billion.The large-cap index was down 117.04 points, or 1.5%, at 7,467.83 early Friday. The mid-cap FTSE 250 index was down 165.01 points, or 0.8%, at 19,470.11, while the AIM All-Share was down 0.5% at 926.88.The Cboe UK 100 index was down 1.4% at 12,664.33. The Cboe UK 250 was down 0.7% at 17,359.62, while the Cboe UK Small Companies was marginally down at 11,056.26.In Paris, the CAC 40 stock index was down 2.4% while the DAX 30 in Frankfurt was 2.3% lower in early trade.In Asia on Friday, the Japanese Nikkei 225 index closed down 2.1%. In China, the Shanghai Composite closed down 1.5%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was 2.2% lower."Equity markets tumbled after Donald Trump imposed 10% tariffs on another USD300 billion worth of Chinese goods that were exempt from duties so far. New tariffs came by surprise just after a delegation of US officials flew home from Shanghai," said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, Senior Market Analyst at London Capital Group. "Talks between the US and China will continue in September, but there is no apparent willpower to resolve the year-long trade dispute. Trump threatens to 'tax the hell out of China' and to raise the tariffs to 25% if there is no progress in talks. The truth is, these attacks could make it gradually harder to find a common ground between the two counties. The risk is that the US's rising pressure on China could backlash and compromise the future of negotiations."Sterling was quoted at USD1.2118 early Friday, down from USD1.2141 at the London equities close on Thursday.China's top diplomat said the freshly announced US tariffs on Chinese goods are not "constructive" in resolving the US-China trade war. "Increasing tariffs is definitely not a constructive measure to solve economic and trade friction," Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters on the sidelines of an ASEAN summit in Bangkok. Also on Friday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took a swipe at China's state-led economic model and unfair trade practices, hours after President Trump pledged new tariffs against the world's second-largest economy. Trump announced on Thursday that the US would increase tariffs on USD300 billion worth of Chinese goods, to 10%, starting on September 1. He said these could be raised "beyond 25%", though that was not currently being planned. Trump said tariff increases or the lifting of the duties would depend on what happens in trade talks. He insisted he believes President Xi Jinping wants to make a deal, but accused the Chinese leader of reneging on pledges to buy farm products.International Consolidated Airlines jumped to the top of the blue-chip index Friday morning, gaining 2.9%, following positive first-half results.The British Airways owner said passenger revenue increased 7% in the first half of 2019 to EUR10.65 billion. Pretax profit was broadly flat at EUR1.01 billion.IAG's available seat kilometres grew 5.7% to 163.4 million, with passenger revenue per available seat kilometre edging 1.3% higher to 6.52 euro cents. Non-fuel costs were 1.2% higher at 4.93 euro cents."Despite fuel cost headwinds, we delivered a good performance. At constant currency, fuel unit costs were up 6.3% while passenger unit revenue increased 1.1%, benefitting from the timing of Easter," said IAG Chief Executive Willie Walsh.At the other end of the FTSE 100, Royal Bank of Scotland was among the worst performers, shedding 5.2%, despite reporting a rise in first half income following the sale of its stake in Saudi Alawwal Bank, allowing the lender to pay a 12 pence special dividend. The state-backed lender's operating pretax profit for the six months to June end increased 47% to GBP2.69 billion from GBP1.83 billion the year before. Profit attributable to shareholders more than doubled to GBP2.04 billion from GBP888 million.First half total income grew 6.1% to GBP7.12 billion from GBP6.70 billion. Net interest income, however, slipped 7.6% to GBP4.00 billion from GBP4.33 billion.The bank's net interest margin in the first half slipped to 1.83% versus 2.02% the year before. Operating expenses decreased 14% to GBP4.10 billion from GBP4.74 billion.For 2020, RBS said: "Given current market conditions, continued economic and political uncertainty and the contraction of the yield curve, it is very unlikely that we will achieve our target return on tangible equity of more than 12% and cost-to-income ratio of less than 50% in 2020. These remain our strategic targets and we believe they are achievable in the medium term."Intertek was 3.5% lower after Kepler Cheuvreux cut the stock to Hold from Reduce. On Thursday, Intertek reported that broad-based organic revenue growth and the contribution from acquisitions led to a rise in first-half earnings. The inspection, product testing and certification company also said it remains on track to deliver on 2019 targets of good organic revenue growth at constant rates, with moderate margin expansion and strong cash conversion.For the six months to June 30, Intertek recorded pretax profit of GBP206.3 million, up 4.9% from GBP196.6 million in the comparative year-ago period. Revenue increased to GBP1.44 billion from GBP1.35 billion. Telecommunications firm BT Group was 3.0% lower on Friday following its quarterly earnings. Reported revenue and profit in the first quarter both struggled but were in line with expectations. For the three months ended June, pretax profit narrowed 8.8% to GBP642 million from GBP704 million the year prior. This was after revenue fell 1.6% to GBP5.63 billion from GBP5.72 billion the year before.Net debt rose to GBP17.81 billion from GBP11.23 billion the year prior.Revenue performance was hurt by falls across all of BT's major units, except at broadband infrastructure subsidiary Openreach, which generated a modest 1.0% rise to GBP1.27 billion. AT BT's largest unit, Consumer, revenue fell 0.8% to GBP2.55 billion, Enterprise revenue declined 4.5% to GBP1.52 billion and the Global division's revenue shrank 5.4% to GBP1.09 billion. In the midcap index, Pets at Home was the morning's big gainer, adding 5.8%, following a strong start to financial 2019. In the first quarter, the pet care business saw group revenue grow 9.9% to GBP303.4 million, with retail revenue growing 8.7% and Vet group revenue jumping 19%. Like-for-like revenue was 8.0% higher.As a result, Pets at Home now expects its underlying profit for financial 2020 to be slightly above current market expectations.Chief Executive Peter Pritchard said: "The momentum with which we exited financial 2019 has continued into the first quarter of financial 2020. We have seen a strong sales performance across the business, particularly in Retail where like-for-like sales were 8.2% - an impressive 14% on a two year basis. We are also making good progress in our Vet Group."At the other end of the FTSE 250, Premier Oil was down 6.3% after Barclays cut the stock to Equal Weight from Overweight.Miner Ferrexpo was 2.9% lower, despite a sharp jump in revenue due to higher iron ore fines prices and an increase in sales volumes.Ferrexpo's first-half revenue was up 28% to USD787 million on total pellet production rising 5% to 5,353 thousand tonnes. Sales were up 4% to 4,990 thousand tonnes.The miner's pretax profit almost doubled in the half-year to USD317.8 million. As a result, the company doubled its interim dividend to 6.6 US cents.Non-Exec Chair Steve Lucas added: "Ferrexpo has a diversified sales portfolio selling to world class steel mills under long term contracts using international benchmark pricing. Currently steel demand is muted in some regions reflecting increased raw material costs and weaker end-user demand. The Group, however, has the ability to deploy tonnage to other markets to offset any regional weakness. Overall pricing remains attractive compared to historic levels."In domestic political news, Boris Johnson has been dealt a significant blow after the Conservatives lost the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election to leave the new prime minister with a working majority of just one in Parliament. The Liberal Democrats won the mid-Wales constituency by a margin of 1,425, swinging the vote nearly 12% from the Tories. The euro was quoted at USD1.1085 early Friday, higher from USD1.1062 at the European equities close Thursday.Still to come, on Friday has UK Markit construction PMI at 0930 BST, eurozone PPI and retail sales at 1000 BST, and the key US nonfarm payrolls at 1330 BST.