Investors in London will be also be looking ahead to the first reading on quarter two GDP in the UK later this week after last week’s bleak assessment by the Bank of England
FTSE 100 is seen opening higher on Monday, despite a mixed showing on Wall Street on Friday, and as the latest July trade data for China pointed to weak domestic demand.
Spread betting companies are calling the blue chip index around 27 points higher.
Michael Hewson Chief Market Analyst at CMC Markets UK said: The latest China trade numbers would appear to in some part support concerns about the economic outlook.
While exports have continued to recover, jumping to 18% in July, and beating expectations after a weak Q2, pushing the trade surplus ever higher, imports are still struggling. These rose by 2.3%, up from 1% in June, and below expectations of a 4% rise. This lack of impetus is being held by a lack of confidence on the part of Chinese consumers, as well as a slowdown in the property sector, he said.
With little sign that Chinese authorities are prepared to ease up on their zero-covid approach in the second half of this year, it’s highly likely that domestic demand will probably remain weak, he said.
Investors in London will be also be looking ahead to the first reading on quarter two GDP in the UK later this week after last week’s bleak assessment by the Bank of England to see if the economy did contract in the quarter.
International recruiter, PageGroup PLC, rewarded shareholders with a special dividend of 26.71p per share as it reported strong growth in revenues and profits in the six months to June 30th.
Revenue jumped by 27.5% to £977.3mln and profit before tax by 79.8% to £114.5mln.
Commenting, Steve Ingham, Chief Executive Officer, said: The Group continued to benefit from favourable trading conditions, including wage inflation and increased fee rates resulting from the high demand and short supply of candidates, in addition to a shorter time to hire facilitated by video interviewing and investments in new systems.
