FTSE 100 Live: Small cap trading resumes again after 'incident' halts shares twice, blue chips unaffected
London shares have been hit by two separate outages today, though trading has continued as normal for members of the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250.
FTSE 100 Live Tuesday
Live updates
Marston’s cheers ‘promising’ Christmas bookings but drops to loss
Pub giant Marston’s has reported “promising” Christmas bookings after a jump in sales, but also slumped to a loss for the past year.
The company, which owns 1,414 pubs across the UK, told shareholders on Tuesday morning that bookings for the key Christmas period have been “tracking ahead of last year”.
William Rucker, chairman of the Wolverhampton-based firm, said consumer demand has remained “resilient” despite the challenging economic backdrop.
Game maker Tinybuild's shares tumble as it warns it could run out of cash by end of January
Video game maker Tinybuild, once valued at £600 million, says it needs to find new cash by the end of January to stay alive, after being hit by the combination of weak sales and two legal settlements.
Tinybuild had already warned on sales earlier in the year but said that the market has deteriorated further in October, and some major contracts now may not be signed. Sales are now expected to fall between $40 million and $50 million.
At the same time, the business agreed two legal settlements that have hit its balance sheet. These concern payments related to the acquisition of game publisher Versus Evil in 2021, and are for a combined $3.5 million.
Tinybuild singled out Versus Evil's games as a particular underperformer in its recent trading performance.
Lunchtime market snapshot
Take a look at our lunchtime market snapshot with Landsec the top riser but the FTSE 100 still down
Shallower UK recession?
Paul Dales, chief UK economist at Capital Economics, says that recent data suggests the recession he expects to hit the UK next year will be shallower than previously thought, but it'll take longer to return to any kind of serious growth.
"With higher interest rates taking longer to percolate through the economy, we now think the recession will be shallower and GDP growth will stay weak throughout all of 2024," he says. "It’s a softer landing for the economy, but the runway is longer.
"And because the restraints on supply are unlikely to fade quickly, price pressures in the UK will take longer to ease than elsewhere. That’s why we believe the Bank of England won’t cut interest rates from 5.25% until late in 2024."
City watchdog clamps down on ‘poor quality’ credit ratings
The City regulator has moved to clamp down on credit rating agencies sharing patchy information with lenders, which it said can lead to people being “cut out” of the credit market or taking on debts they cannot afford.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said changes were needed to make sure people’s credit files better reflect their finances.
Equifax, Experian and TransUnion are the three largest credit reference agencies in the UK, accounting for almost all of the credit information sector.
Trading to resume after second small-cap halt
Trading is set to resume after the second outage for small-caps of the day.
The exchange said: "Impacted instruments are being resumed. Order driven securities will enter into a re-opening auction at 12:20 with uncrossing beginning at 12:40. During this period, instrument status will be shown as Halted but customers will be able to manage their orders in the system. After the uncrossing, the instrument status will be updated to Regular Trading. At 12:20, SETSqx securities will return to their regular schedule but instrument status will show as Halted.
"In SETSqx securities, customers will be able to manage quotes and orders as normal in this period, with the next scheduled auction uncrossing at 14:00 as per the normal schedule after which the instrument status will move from Halted to a instrument status that reflects its regular schedule. Pure quote driven securities will continue to show as Halted although quotes can still be managed in the system with investigations ongoing."
CBI appoints Soames as new president as it aims to rebound from scandals
Business lobby group the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has appointed Rupert Soames as its new president, as it aims to bounce back from a series of scandals.
Soames will replace Brian McBride, and work with CEO Rain Newton-Smith. He joins a CBI that is aiming to reimagine itself after surviving a vote on its future following a number of scandals that contributed to the exit of former CEO Tony Danker.
The Guardian reported that two different women reported they were raped while working at the group. Reports also claimed that Danker sent a female employee inappropriate messages over more than a year. Former president John Allan, who left that role in 2020, was also accused of inappropriate touching.
Small caps suspended again
Trading of shares outside the FTSE 350 has been halted again, as the London Stock Exchange continues to deal with an unspecified issue.
The exchange said: "We are investigating an issue. Currently only FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and IOB securities are available for trading.
"We are undertaking immediate analysis and will provide further updates through our live service portal"
Market snapshot: FTSE 100 falls further
Take a look at the latest market snapshot with the FTSE 100 having fallen further.
City Comment: Any fight over UK asset ownership was lost long ago
Foreign ownership of UK listed shares has hit a record high of nearly 60%, The Times reports this morning.
Which means the ownership of such assets by UK pension funds and insurers is at an all-time low – or at least the lowest since anyone started counting.
You can look at this two ways. One is we’ve been engaged in a decades long experiment to sell England by the pound, a reckless flogging of the family silver not replicated by any other wealthy nation.
The second is that foreign investors seem to have rather more belief in our prospects than we do.