FTSE Up Marginally In Cautious Trade After Weak Manufacturing Data

(RTTNews) - After opening slightly up and advancing further, UK stocks pared gains Thursday morning and are mostly subdued a little before noon as investors react to data showing a sharp contraction in the nation's manufacturing activity in the month of December.

The UK market's benchmark FTSE 100 index, which advanced to 8,204.00 earlier in the session, was up 10.84 points or 0.13% at 8,183.86 a little while ago.

Bank stocks are among the notable losers. Barclays, HSBC Holdings and Natwest Group are down 2.2%, 1.9% and 1.7%, respectively. Natwest Group is down by about 1.4% and Lloyds Banking Group is down nearly 1%.

Shares of airline holding company IAG are declining nearly 2.5%. Easyjet is down 1.7%, while Melrose Industries, St. James's Place, Kingfisher, Intertek Group, Prudential and Segro are lower by 0.6 to 1.2%.

Fresnillo is rising nearly 2.5%. Centrica is gaining about 2.3% and Endeavour Mining is advancing 2%. Marks & Spencer, Rolls-Royce Holdings, Pershing Square Holding, Glencore, BT Group, Unite Group, Pearson and BP are up 1 to 1.7%.

Final survey data from S&P Global revealed that the UK manufacturing sector deteriorated at the steepest pace in nearly a year in December, as output and new orders and employment fell at faster rates.

The manufacturing purchasing managers' index dropped to 47.0 in December from 48.0 in November. The flash reading was also 47.3.

Output declined at the steepest pace since January, and the downturn was widespread across the consumer, intermediate, and investment goods industries.

New orders fell further and at the quickest pace since October 2023. Export orders also logged the fastest reduction in ten months amid lower order intakes from clients in Europe, Asia, and the USA.