UK blue chip shares have tumbled this morning as investors end the year on a cautious note.
It mirrors last night’s moves on Wall Street, where the S&P 500 closed 0.6% down and the Nasdaq Composite 0.7% down.
Not helping London’s leading basket of stocks, which is exporter-heavy, is a strengthening of the pound against the dollar to $1.3132.
At around 8.50am, the benchmark FTSE 100 index was down around 0.2% or 16 points to 7,570.
But for the year as a whole the FTSE is on course to be materially higher, having started 2019 around the 6,700 mark.
Healthcare operator NMC Health (NMC) and distributor Bunzl (BNZL) were bottom of the FTSE 100, falling 1.7% to £17.85 and 1% to £20.63 respectively, joined in the lower end of the index by several other overseas earners.
Banking giants Barclays (BARC) and HSBC (HSBA) both dipped 0.5% to 179p and 593p respectively, while Coca Cola bottling company Coca-Cola HBC (CCH) fell 1.2% to £25.59 and cigarette and tobacco manufacturer British American Tobacco (BATS) dropping 1% to £32.25.
In company news, oilfield services provider Petrofac (PFC) traded broadly flat at 384p after winning another contract, this time worth $130m, for works on a natural gas project in Oman.
Property investment business CLS Holdings (CLI) edged 0.7% higher to 299p after selling 19 regional offices in the UK for a total of £65m.
CLS chief executive Fredrik Widlund said the transaction was a ‘significant step’ in CLS implementing its strategy to focus on London and the South East office markets.
Mobile commerce firm Bango (BGO) fell 6.8% to 127p as it said revenue for 2019 would be below expectations due to a Customer Data Platform (CDP) license and Marketplace supply deal not concluding in December as expected.
