A marginally worse than forecast UK manufacturing PMI failed to prevent cable from continuing to push higher on Wednesday.
With the papers full of reports that Theresa May is closing in on a Brexit deal with Labour, one that’d potentially include a permanent customs union, the pound held firm, adding 0.3% against the dollar – where it’s now at a 2-week peak – and 0.1% against the euro. This despite the manufacturing PMI falling from 55.1 to 53.1 month-on-month, that decline coming as the sector stepped back its panicked no-deal Brexit stockpiling (for now, anyway).
Sterling’s steadiness, alongside a reduction in Sainsbury's (LON:SBRY) early growth, and a 1% slide from Shell (LON:RDSa) as a Dutch court decided to hear a damage suit against the company relating to the execution of activists by the Nigerian government in 1995, left the FTSE teetering just above 7400.
Turning to the US open and, after Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) managed to navigate the steepest drop-off in iPhone sales in the product’s history by lifting its outlook for the third quarter, the Dow Jones is set to jump 80 points when the bell rings on Wall Street. That’d push it back above 26650, and leave it 200 points adrift of last October’s all-time highs. With a Federal Reserve meeting on the horizon, however, it’ll be interesting to see how active the index ends up being this afternoon.
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