The FTSE 100 headed lower into the weekend as UK retail sales disappointed while Tesco also underwhelmed. London’s blue-chip index was down 16 at 7.137 in early trade.
Retail sales dropped by 1.4% in May after a 9.2% surge in April. The ONS said people eating out again as lockdown restrictions were eased knocked food sales by 5.7%.
Tesco PLC (LON:TSCO) numbers echoed the stats, with a small rise in quarterly sales compared to last year when revenue was boosted by a huge surge in demand during the first Coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown. Trading benefited from increased at-home consumption during March but slowed in April and May as restrictions eased.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) is facing a probe in the US after auto safety regulators opened 30 investigations into crashes involving the suspected use of its assisted driving system. The incidents have caused ten deaths since 2016, Reuters reported.
Among the small caps, ANGLE PLC (LON:AGL) said a study using the company’s liquid biopsy system has helped increase the understanding of non-small cell lung cancer and how it mutates, a breakthrough that may offer a new method of guiding precision treatment. A team from the University of Athens deployed the Parsortix system to isolate circulating tumour cells (CTC) from blood samples.
Challenger Energy Group PLC (LON:CEG) provided an upbeat assessment of the secondary reservoir targets in the Saffron-2 appraisal well as it drills down to the well’s main target. Third-party petrophysical analysis of log data has indicated some 165 feet of net oil bearing reservoir sands.
