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Summary
- FTSE 100 trades in the negative zone near the 7000 mark.
- British Airlines operator IAG group said its capacity in the third quarter would rise to 45% of pre-pandemic levels.
FTSE 100 is in the red zone on the last trading day of the week, tracking the Asian markets, which mostly closed in negative terrain. Mid-cap focused FTSE250 was also down by 0.57% at the 22918 levels.
The top loser amongst the blue-chip index was Intertek Plc, whose share was down by over 7.1% after its half-yearly result announcement, as the company’s profits saw a rise but were still short of market expectation.
British Airlines operator IAG Group said its summer capacity would rise to only 45% of pre-pandemic levels in the third quarter of this year. A cautious view by the company is because of partial closure of the US airline route and somewhat behind the estimate of other airlines like EasyJet and Ryanair, which operate on the same route. Nevertheless, the third quarter capacity rise is a significant jump from the 22% capacity the airline carried in the second quarter of this year.
European Markets
Major European market indexes are trading in the negative territory. German blue-chip DAX index is down by 0.74% at 15,523, while the benchmark index of France, CAC 40 was at 6,625, down by 0.11%. The European market trades lower despite good corporate earnings by the European companies like BNP Paribas, which reported a 26% rise in net income in the second-quarter earnings, while Renault stock rose after the French carmaker posted a half-yearly net profit.
Currency Markets
The pound continues to quote higher at 1.3974, up by 0.10% against the US dollar; the dollar has been moving down since the conclusion of the US Federal Reserve meeting as the central bank kept the interest rate unchanged, and it was evident that the rate hike will take much longer than the market expectations. The EUR/ GBP currency pair traded at 0.8520, up by 0.11%.
Commodities
WTI crude oil future contract traded at USD 73.44, down by 0.23%, while the Brent crude oil trades at USD 74.94, down by 0.21%. The crude oil is set to close higher on a weekly basis after crude oil inventory in the US fell to record low levels earlier this week.
Gold August futures contract was trading in the red, down by 0.20% at USD 1827 per ounce.
Asian Markets
Major Asia Pacific indexes closed the day in red, Australia’s ASX200 closed at 7,392, down by 0.33%. Shanghai Composite of China closed in red, down by 0.42% at 3,397. Nikkei 225 of Japan also closed in the red, down by 1.80% at 27283, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index closed down by 1.28% at 25908. India’s Nifty 50 closed at 15,763, down by 0.10%.
