FTSE 100 Live: Blue-chip index opens higher, oil prices rise but bonds ease Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock
London has a new arrival on the market this morning.
Halo Minerals, a company looking to extract copper from legacy mining waste in northern Chile, has raised £4 million and listed on AIM.
The shares started on the back foot as trading began this morning, dropping 4% to 17.25p from the 18p issue price of the initial public offering.
Operations are focused on processing tailings at the 100% owned Playa Verde project in the Atacama region, the prolific copper-producing area where BHP’s Escondida mine is based, along with operations of state-owned giant Codelco, which has partnerships with Antofagasta, Freeport-McMoRan and Rio Tinto.
The FTSE 100 has begun the week slightly on the front foot, up around 13 points to just over 9,980.
A 3.6% rise for Rio Tinto, outperforming smaller gains for the wider mining sector, with Glencore next, up 0.9%.
Housebuilders such as Barratt Redrow and utilities such as SSE were helping, likely to be boosted as government bond yields retreated (see analysis below).
Biggest fallers are 3i Group, Informa, HSBC and Whitbread.
Boohoo has delivered underlying profits comfortably ahead of its own guidance, with EBITDA up 36% to £53 million in the year to February, driven by a 76% surge in the second half.
The online fashion retailer, which operates under the Debenhams brand, said the second-half growth reflected the accelerated impact of its cost-cutting and restructuring programme.
Chief executive Dan Finley said the business had reset its cost base, completed a warehouse consolidation, migrated to a new technology platform and “rightsized” its stock levels – work he described as “significant progress, ahead of our plan”.
Finley has also nudged up the outlook for the coming year too.
With a new threat to shipping through the Suez Canal over the weekend, oil prices have continued to climb as we start a new week, with Brent crude topping $116 a barrel earlier and sitting above $115.
“Several factors have contributed,” says Henry Allen at Deutsche Bank’s macro strategy team, but the joining of the Iran-backed Houthis to the Middle East conflict over the weekend, launching strikes at Israel, has raised “fears about a new front in the war”.
The Wall Street Journal has also reported this morning that President Trump is weighing a military operation to extract Iran’s uranium, adding to the FT interview where he Trump openly suggested the US could take the Kharg Island export hub.
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“So there’s still no sign of a clear end to the conflict, and given the various headlines, investors remain fearful about a fresh escalation.
“With everything that’s happened, the market impact is becoming increasingly serious,” he says, with the S&P 500 down for five consecutive weeks for the first time since 2022, back when the global economy was facing a similar stagflationary shock, while the Nasdaq fell over 3% last week to mark its worst weekly performance since Trump’s tarriff announcements last year.
“Fears about a longer conflict are evident from the energy futures curve,” says Allen, with three-month Brent crude futures up another 1.8% this morning to $100.50 a barrel, which would be their highest closing level since the conflict began.
“So it’s becoming clear that markets are expecting an extended period of high oil prices, with stagflationary implications for the global economy.
“Interestingly though, the primary concern this morning has shifted back to the growth side rather than inflation. So markets are pricing out the likelihood of imminent hikes and sovereign bond yields have fallen.”
On the index swaps market, the next ECB meeting in April below 50% for the first time in over a week, while US 10yr Treasury yields fell back overnight from their eight-month high on Friday.
“Meanwhile for equities, US futures are stable this morning, with those on the S&P 500 unchanged, but they’re more negative in Europe, with DAX futures down -0.65%.”
The FTSE 100 is expected to start the week with a decline of around 24 points, as energy prices continue to climb amidst threats to key shipping lanes in the Middle East and rhetoric from US President Donald Trump.
Brent crude is standing above $115 a barrel, similar to levels reached at the end of last week, with investors weighing the risk of further disruption to global energy supplies and ensuing inflation.
Trump said a deal with Iran was possible but said his preference would be to “take the oil”, he told the FT, which would involve ground troops seizing the key export hub Kharg Island.
But, per Reuters, he told reporters on Air Force One: “I think we’ll make a deal with them, I’m pretty sure. But it’s possible we won’t.”
The London index closed at 9,967.35 last week, down around five points on the last day of trading, up around 50 over the week but down over 800 points since the start of the month.
Asian markets are down this morning, with Japan’s Nikkei 3%, while the Hang Seng is down 1% and India’s Sensex 1.4% lower.