Tuesday, 18^th September: The effects of the trade war recently have been one of the main contributing factors to the FTSE 100 being down more than 5.0% so far this year. The two tobacco giants were at the bottom of the index this morning following negative sentiment towards the industry and the challenges it faces. Imperial Brands and British American Tobacco were down 1.5% and 2.1% respectively during early hours of trading, however, as the day went on, it was ITV who once again landed the spot at the very bottom in the afternoon.

Miners dominated the opposite end of the index, with Glencore at the top pulling them into green territory after speculation of China boosting infrastructure investment. Whilst coal was being crowded with attention and pushed to $110 per metric ton, oil spent the day fluctuating in price across the border, but Brent crude was up circa 0.67% at $78.86 per barrel in the afternoon in the UK, resisting passing $80.00 which hasn’t been done since November 2014.

Grocers in the UK enjoyed yet another period of gains as fresh data revealed a 3.8% increase in the latest three-month period in sales. Although the big four supermarkets in the UK benefited from this, they also lost regarding market share, which continued to be stolen from them by the two smaller discounters Aldi and Lidl. Amongst the four larger players though, Asda sales were the highest at 3.1% and Sainsbury’s the lowest at 1.6%, however, their luck could change after the acquisition of Asda is set in stone.

The FTSE 100 ended the day down by the identical amount yesterday, 0.03% at 7300.