The FTSE 100 is working on a 4th consecutive daily gain with the benchmark trading at its highest level since September and looking to make a decisive break above prior resistance in the vicinity of 7450.
Shares across Europe are trading in the green and a melt-up in US indices continues to play out with futures pointing to new all-time highs for the major benchmarks this afternoon before North America break for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Shares in retailers will be in focus in the coming days ahead of Black Friday, and it’s worth noting that several of the laggards amongst UK blue-chips today come from this space with JD Sports (LON:JD) the worst performing stock on the index while Tesco (LON:TSCO) and Ocado (LON:OCDO) are also trading lower.
GBP traders await key poll
Polling data for the forthcoming election has been fairly consistent since the campaigns began, with the Tories maintaining a sizeable lead although Labour have looked to close the gap in recent days. One of the main issues with the polls released so far is that they have focused on popular support and therefore contain a significant margin for error in predicting how this translates into seats.
Tonight at 10pm we will get what is seen by many as the best indication so far as to the prospects of the respective parties with the release of the YouGov MRP model which correctly predicted a hung parliament in 2017. There are obviously flaws with this model, not least that it was conducted well before the election was called, but in all likelihood the markets will treat this as the best guess yet and therefore we expect an increase in volatility for GBP pairs when the results are released