UK shares were decimated on Friday as panic selling swept the market on Black Friday leaving investors facing an equities sea of red. The benchmark FTSE 100 finished the day 266 points lower, or 3.6% down, at 7,044.03, with the state of mid-caps barely any better. The FTSE 250 lost nearly 750 point, or 3.2% as it closed at 22,573.89. Sharp falls in anything travel or leisure related bore the ...

Wall Street shuts down for a day and all hell breaks loose. The market talk before the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, 25 November, was of faster tapering of economic stimulus packages and sustained inflation, but Friday’s worldwide stock market sell-off after a new, potentially lethal Covid variant was uncovered in southern Africa, has completely re-written the tune investors had been ...

Leading UK shares continue to plunge at lunchtime with panic selling on Black Friday leaving investors facing a stock market sea of red. At 12.30pm, the benchmark FTSE 100 is trading almost 200 points lower, or 2.7%, at 7,133.63, with the state of mid-caps barely any better, the FTSE 250 down more than 2% at 22,779.34. Sharp falls in anything travel or leisure related bore the brunt of the ...

While markets globally slumped on news of a seemingly more virulent South African strain of Covid-19, there were glimmers of light among stocks which were previous lockdown winners. As we flagged in the latest edition of Shares, investors in the US have for several weeks been buying stocks that benefited from more people at home (the lockdown winners, such as video conferencing providers) and ...

Sukh  Chamdal, chief executive and co-founder of specialist fresh cream cakes retailer Cake Box (CBOX:AIM) has sold shares with a market value of £10.5 million. The sale represents 7.5% of the company's shares and was executed through an accelerated book build with house broker Shore Capital. The sale leaves Chamdal with 9.8 million shares, representing just under 25% of the ...

Shares in international diagnostics specialist Novacyt (NCYT:AIM) jumped 20% on Friday to 396.6p after the company’s real time genesig Covid-19 PCR test was added to the approved list of products under new CTDA (Covid Testing Devices Authorisation) regulations. Novacyt said the approval will ‘significantly’ lower the financial impact that it previously quantified as £3 million of lost ...

The UK’s Blue Prism (PRSM:AIM) has agreed to a final takeover offer from private equity firm Vista Equity worth £1.22 billion. But this might not be the knockout blow, as today’s 6% share price rally to £12.90 implies. Vista called its latest offer ‘final’ and ups the cash deal to £12.50 per share, trumping the rival £12 cash offered by US software firm SS&C Technologies. Vista ...

Shares in ScS (SCS) cheapened 9.6% to 225p on Friday after the value sofas-to-carpets seller reported a reduction in store footfall and conversion over the past seven weeks with consumers spending less on big ticket items. The Sunderland-based retailer, which had previously reported a strong start to the year, attributed the recent step-back in trading momentum to a change in behaviour, with ...

London’s FTSE 100 slumped on Friday morning, led by sharp falls in travel and leisure stocks after the UK re-imposed travel restrictions on several African countries following a potentially more infectious strain of Covid-19. At 08:58 am, the blue chip benchmark was down 200 points, or 2.74%, to 7,110.22 with aero-engineer Rolls-Royce (RR.), British Airways-owner International Consolidated ...

Stocks across Europe generally lacked direction in the absence of American equity market participation due to the Thanksgiving holiday, but strong UK retail sales data lent support to the equity market. The CBI (Confederation of British Industry) monthly retail sales balance increased to a three month high of +39 from +30 and is expected to rise again in December, driven in part by consumers ...