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British shares fall as UK economy slows more than expected

Published by Wanda Rich

Posted on April 11, 2022

Featured image for article about Top Stories

By Devik Jain

(Reuters) -UK stocks slipped on Monday as data showed the British economy slowed more sharply than expected in February, with industrials and consumer staples stocks weighing the most on the blue-chip FTSE 100 index.

The FTSE 100 fell 0.5% after logging its fifth straight weekly gain on Friday, while the domestically focused FTSE 250 midcap index declined 0.3%.

Tobacco firm British American Tobacco, Dove soap maker Unilever, Experian and drugmaker AstraZeneca dropped between 0.7% and 1.8%, dragging the blue-chip index lower.

Britain’s gross domestic product rose by 0.1% in February, missing the 0.3% rise forecast by economists in a Reuters poll and down from a 0.8% increase in January.

“This reading does indicate the UK economy is showing more signs of fragility than the U.S,” said Susannah Streeter, a senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

“So, policymakers are likely to hold off from mirroring the Federal Reserve’s much more aggressive stance in terms of tightening monetary policy.”

The FTSE 100 has risen more than 3.7% so far this year, helped by gains in heavyweight commodity, consumer staples and banking stocks as oil and metal prices rallied on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and prospects grew of rapid policy tightening by global central banks to tame inflation.

“It is also a defensive story. We’ve seen so far this year that the pound is weaker, which is also playing into the fact that the FTSE 100 is probably the best performer this year,” said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK.

“The additional factor is the FTSE 100 hasn’t edged yet its all-time highs.”

Among individual stocks, Ascential climbed 4.5% after the events and analytics company confirmed a media report that it was in early stages of evaluating merits of a managed separation of its certain assets.

John Wood Group surged 14% after Jefferies upgraded the stock to “hold” from “underperform”.

Weir Group slipped 2% after the engineering firm acquired Carriere Industrial Supply.

(Reporting by Devik Jain in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh.V and Subhranshu Sahu)