The latest from London: Another bad omen

London's FTSE 100 inches up 0.2% this morning, with miners’ good performance hampered by energy stocks in the wake of Hurricane Ida. A wait-and-see attitude should dominate until the announcement this afternoon of the US employment figures in August. They are expected to be a major variable for the Fed in constructing its asset purchase reduction schedule.

Bad news seem to accumulate in the UK: Daily COVID cases are still close to 40,000 per day as schools reopen, UK House prices are rising at record rates, the costs of building materials keeps rising due to supply chain bottlenecks...etc. And another one was announced today, with the release of the IHS Markit/CIPS UK Services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), which shows that the UK services sector activity expanded less than expected in August. It was revised lower to 55.0, versus 55.5 expected.

This comes after the manufacturing PMI also showed that manufacturing activity slowed last month.

Yesterday, the FTSE 100 close up 0.25%. CMC Markets saw its shares drop more than 27% after warning that low market volatility impacted trading by clients.

 

Things to read:

Gas crunch threatens industry in UK and Europe (Financial Times)

Why Bitcoin’s Price Got Stuck at $50,000 (WSJ)

Banks and investors gear up for US corporate debt binge (Financial Times)

A new coal mine in England is stirring hopes and fears (NYT)