London open: Stocks rise ahead of non-farm payrolls

(Sharecast News) - London stocks rose in early trade on Friday following solid sessions in Asia and on Wall Street, as investors eyed the latest US non-farm payrolls report. At 0820 BST, the FTSE 100 was up 0.3% at 8,196.59.

The non-farm payrolls report for April is due at 1330 BST, along with the unemployment rate and average earnings.

Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor, said: "The next test of investors' mettle comes later today with the release of the eagerly anticipated non-farm payrolls report, where the consensus is that 243,000 jobs will have been added in April, as compared to 303,000 the previous month, and for the unemployment rate to remain unchanged at 3.8%.

"More recent NFP prints have tended to provide surprises which have resulted in sharp market moves and any large deviation from the consensus in either direction would add to volatility. A particularly high reading, for example, would play against the narrative that higher interest rates are cooling demand, potentially pushing the need for any rate cuts at all further out."

On home shores, industry data showed that retail footfall fell sharply in April, hit by poor weather and the early timing of Easter.

According to the latest BRC-Sensormatic IQ Footfall Monitor, total UK footfall fell 7.2% in April year-on-year, further compounding March's 1.3% decline.

Within that, high street footfall fell by 6.9% while footfall in retail parks was down 6.2%. In shopping centres, which had seen a marginal 0.3% uptick in March, footfall slid 7.2%.

The British Retail Consortium attributed much of the decline to the early timing of Easter. This year Easter was at the end of March, whereas last year it was over a week later in April.

Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC, said: "While UK footfall was impacted by poor weather last month, this was artificially exacerbated by the comparison with 2023, when Easter was in April.

"All locations saw declines on the previous months, and nearly all major cities performed similarly poor."

In equity markets, Anglo American was sitting pretty at the top of the FTSE 100 following a Reuters report that Glencore is studying an approach for the miner after it rejected a £31bn proposal from BHP.

Online rail ticket selling platform Trainline surged as it reported better-than-expected revenue along with a sharp jump in annual sales and profits, driven by competition for passengers in Spain and Italy along with a greater take-up of digital tickets in the UK.

On the downside, InterContinental Hotels Group fell as it reported a substantial easing in revenue per available room (RevPAR) growth in the first quarter as weakness in the Americas and a big slowdown in China limited progress.

Packaging firm Mondi was also weaker after a first-quarter trading update.

In broker note action, Jefferies downgraded AJ Bell and Tyman to 'hold' from 'buy'.

British Land was cut to 'equalweight' from 'overweight' by Barclays.

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 8,196.59 0.30% FTSE 250 (MCX) 20,038.70 -0.07% techMARK (TASX) 4,618.55 0.38%

FTSE 100 - Risers

Anglo American (AAL) 2,749.50p 3.31% Flutter Entertainment (DI) (FLTR) 15,590.00p 2.13% Diploma (DPLM) 3,780.00p 1.89% Rentokil Initial (RTO) 407.50p 1.62% Diageo (DGE) 2,772.00p 1.59% CRH (CDI) (CRH) 6,356.00p 1.53% Entain (ENT) 794.40p 1.43% Ashtead Group (AHT) 5,700.00p 1.14% Prudential (PRU) 736.80p 1.13% Convatec Group (CTEC) 252.20p 1.12%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Glencore (GLEN) 450.45p -1.80% InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) 7,796.00p -1.17% AstraZeneca (AZN) 12,072.00p -0.69% Mondi (MNDI) 1,546.50p -0.48% Compass Group (CPG) 2,212.00p -0.41% International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 177.80p -0.28% British American Tobacco (BATS) 2,367.00p -0.17% Standard Chartered (STAN) 754.80p -0.16% Land Securities Group (LAND) 656.50p -0.15% Beazley (BEZ) 639.00p -0.08%

FTSE 250 - Risers

Bellway (BWY) 2,602.00p 2.28% Watches of Switzerland Group (WOSG) 350.20p 1.51% Man Group (EMG) 266.60p 1.37% Morgan Sindall Group (MGNS) 2,365.00p 1.28% Polar Capital Technology Trust (PCT) 2,925.00p 1.21% Softcat (SCT) 1,598.00p 1.14% Balfour Beatty (BBY) 377.20p 1.07% Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings (AML) 134.50p 0.98% PureTech Health (PRTC) 216.00p 0.93% Abrdn (ABDN) 151.00p 0.90%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

Dr. Martens (DOCS) 75.25p -4.38% Bridgepoint Group (Reg S) (BPT) 227.40p -2.49% Essentra (ESNT) 175.60p -2.34% Trustpilot Group (TRST) 195.40p -2.30% VinaCapital Vietnam Opportunity Fund Ltd. (VOF) 470.00p -2.29% Tritax Big Box Reit (BBOX) 154.00p -2.28% Victrex plc (VCT) 1,242.00p -2.05% SSP Group (SSPG) 192.70p -2.03% Tate & Lyle (TATE) 643.00p -1.91% Hilton Food Group (HFG) 911.00p -1.83%