At mid-morning London's leading index is only just in positive territory.
The FTSE has struggled to make any headway in the first couple of hours trade and there seems to be a growing temptation to take risk out of the market ahead of those non-farm payrolls from across the Atlantic early this afternoon. Worse than expected UK services PMI is also serving to weigh on sentiment with both London equities and the pound selling off a little on the back of this news, but again there's little that's worthy of note to be working on. After a poor August the temptation may well be there to try to at least consolidate around these levels – Wednesday's gains remain in tact but again the long weekend that's coming up in the US could see traders taking money off the table in
the next few hours regardless of that employment reading from Washington.
Looking into next week, the return to work will essentially be completed and we've already seen M&A rumours bubbling around so there would be little surprise if this agenda was to start gaining ground in the near term. The latest MPC update from the Bank of England is also due next Thursday so expect this to be closely watched – this morning's PMI reading combined with yesterday's house price data is certainly starting to cast a shadow over the economic recovery, so any signs of concern from Mervyn King could initiate another ripple of selling across the board. Wall Street is currently eyeing a slightly softer start after the late spurt of buying last night, but the outcome of that payroll
data will be the determining factor here.
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