FTSE 100 Modestly Lower In Cautious Trade
(RTTNews) - U.K. stocks are drifting lower in cautious trade Friday morning, after rising to record highs in the previous session, as investors await the release of U.S. non-farm payroll data for some clues about the Federal Reserve's likely move on interest rates.
The benchmark FTSE 100 was down 26.72 or 0.31% at 8700.56 a little while ago.
Legal & General is rising nearly 5.5%. The stock is up following the life insurer agreeing to sell its U.S. protection business to Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Company for $2.3 billion.
Hiscox is up 1.85%, while Glencore, BP, Vodafone, LondonMetric Property and BAE Systems are up 0.9 to 1.25%.
Endeavour Mining, Coca-Cola HBC, DCC, Compass Group, Anglo American Plc, IAG, Kingfisher and British American Tobacco are modestly higher.
Barratt Redrow is declining more than 3.5%. Marks & Spencer is down 3% and Mondi is lower by about 2.7%.
Taylor Wimpey, ICP, Persimmon, Howeden Joinery, GSK, Auto Trader Group, Entain, Berkeley Group Holdings, AstraZeneca and Diploma are down 1.5 to 2.3%. Barclays Group and Next are also notably lower.
UK house prices grew more than expected in January to hit a record high as buyer demand increased ahead of the stamp duty hike in April, mortgage lender Halifax said Friday.
House prices increased 0.7% in January from December, reversing a 0.2% drop in the previous month. The monthly growth was also faster than economists' forecast of 0.4%.
On a yearly basis, growth in house prices moderated to 3% from 3.4% in December. This was the slowest growth since last July. Average property prices hit a record GBP 299,138 in January.
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