An escalation of the trade conflict between China and the US sent shares lower across Asian and European markets today, with London’s FTSE 100 following suit, down almost 1% or 69 points to 7,201.
The People's Daily newspaper, owned by China's ruling Communist Party, said Beijing was ready to use rare earths for leverage in its trade war with the United States.
The U.S. Treasury Department said in a report on Tuesday it reviewed the policies of an expanded set of 21 major U.S. trading partners and found that nine required close attention due to currency practices: China, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam.
Shares in London Southend Airport owner Stobart Group (STOB) are flying, up 11% to 130p after reporting underlying profits up 39% for the year ended 28 February 2019.
Chief executive officer (CEO) Warwick Brady said ‘Stobart Group has a clear focus on developing infrastructure assets in the aviation and energy sectors. These are high growth assets with strong market positions that are now well positioned to become increasingly cash generative’.
Supermarket stocks are weaker after the Kantar sales figures for the 12 weeks to mid-May show a sharp slowdown from last year. Total sales were up just 1.3% over the period against 2.7% a year ago, with almost all of this year’s increase due to higher food prices rather than higher volumes.
The biggest losers in terms of market share year-to-date are Sainsbury's (SBRY) and Tesco (TSCO) while Aldi and Lidl have increased their combined take to almost 14%.
Tesco falls almost 3% to 231.8p while rival Sainsbury's shares are down 1% to 196.7p.
Elsewhere, London-focused residential property developer Telford Homes (TEF:AIM) booked a 13% fall in annual profit and held its dividend steady after its margins shrunk, pushing the shares down 3% to 294p.
Brokers are raising concerns over the impact on the company's gross margins of the shift away from a straight build and sell strategy.
Shares in EasyHotel (EZH:AIM) jump 4% higher to 77p, driven by market out-performance and good profitable growth in the first half of the year, during which revenue rose 52.6% to £7.26m.
The company opened three new hotels totalling 290 rooms, with five new hotels totalling 517 rooms due to open during the second half and a further nine new owned hotels are planned to open in next 24 months.
Industrial software company AVEVA (AVV) reports annual statutory profits up by more than a third amid ongoing growth in demand for industrial software, although the shares fall 9p to £34.25 on profit-taking following a stellar run.
A list of all of today’s risers and fallers can be found here.
