Tuesday, 26 January: FTSE indices generally traded lower in early morning trade before rebounding somewhat in the late afternoon, closing up 0.59% .  This followed weak sentiment overnight from Asia, a late 1% slip yesterday afternoon on the S&P 500 as oil sold off later after the London close.

Gold rallied to a price of US$1,116.00 /oz through the night, this prompted a rally in miners Randgold and Fresnillo, up 4.5% and 2.3% respectively on the back of the overnight gold rush. Shell and BP sold off in early morning trade on weaker oil through the night, before finding green territory as oil rallied into the London close.

Oil is seemingly driving the majority of equity market action across the world, as worries regarding China fade slightly into the background. Investors are wary of a spiralling deflationary period driven by falling oil commodity prices, a precursor to a worsening global economic outlook. The rest of the week will provide plenty of rhetoric for investors to ponder as we have the FOMC meeting commencing shortly, followed by a raft of European consumer confidence and inflation data.  A sliver of good US data out today suggested growth in consumer confidence rose to the highest level since October at 98.1 as it seems US consumers are unperturbed by the volatility across equity markets. This was higher than predicted by the Wall Street Journal survey, and will have to remain high as the US relies on consumers to drive US growth.

Marston’s traded 6% higher into the London close on the back of good trading over the Christmas and New Year period. The brewer and pub operator posted like-for-like sales growth of 3.0% on last year, including like-for-like food sales growth of 2.5%. Away from the pub and into the brewery, the brewer saw increases in its own-brewed volume of 21% year-to-date, underpinned by a very strong performance in the off-trade.

At the close European indices were up with the FTSE 100 +0.59%, the CAC 40 +1.05%, and the DAX 30 +0.89%.