Good morning from London where the FTSE 100 has opened lower this morning, following small losses on the main Asian markets overnight and another fall in oil prices that has hit London’s energy majors.
Shell and BP are both in this morning’s bottom ten, after Ice Brent fell below $80/bl, having been above 95 as recently as September. An Opec+ meeting scheduled for this Thursday is likely to be one of the main talking points in the market between now and then, but its gold that’s grabbing the headlines this morning after reaching six-month highs of nearly $2,020/oz on a weaker dollar and all those prevailing geopolitical jitters that have sent some people scurrying back to safe haven assets.
Back on the FTSE 100 and we’ve had a couple of announcements from major FTSE 100 companies so far this morning. Aviva is expanding its operations in Canada with the $100mln acquisition of vehicle replacement insurance business Optiom and Rightmove say this morning that they’ve performed ahead of expectations since July despite the housing market itself being relatively slow. The idea there seems to be that housebuilders are having to spend more than usual advertising on the site in order to drum up interest. Rightmove’s share price is up around 5% to be this morning’s biggest gainer so far.
Finally in small caps Europa Oil & Gas’ management are fending off the requisition of a general meeting by some disgruntled shareholders today, describing the attempt as "materially deficient and invalid".
