Member Article

BAE shines as markets pause for breath

Equity markets were slightly weaker this morning, suppressed by energy and mining companies as commodity prices retraced slightly following their strong rebound over the last week. Additionally, investors were perhaps apprehensive ahead of the Slovakian parliamentary vote to approve the expansion of the Eurozone’s rescue fund, the EFSF. Slovakia remains the last to vote on the issue, with the bloc’s other 16 nations having already agreed the measures. Whilst three of the four parties in the governing coalition were behind the vote, the Freedom and Solidarity party announced it would abstain, viewing their country’s contribution as unfair given they are the poorest nation in the single currency.

With little in the way of significant positive news, the reaching of the upper end of a two month trading range may have given investors as excuse to bank some gains. The FTSE traded around 5350 for most of the day (off by just under 1%) although it staged a rally from early afternoon onwards to finish almost where it started at 5396 , a loss of less than 0.1 %. BAE systems found itself at the top of the index with a 4% gain to 281p, the aerospace and defence firm boosted by the buy-back of 1.28m shares at an average of 273.6p.

Key developments post market close are the results of the Slovakian vote, and the start of the third quarter earnings season in the US. This is to commence this evening with Alcoa, investors keen to see how one of the world’s largest aluminium producers had fared over the last three months.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by John Dance .