Wednesday, 13th November: The FTSE 100 fell 0.48% in the opening trade on a Wednesday as president Trump threatened another increase in tariffs during his speech to the Economic Club of New York. Topping the index was Coca-Cola following an upbeat Q3 update. Unseasonable weather has been to blame for the industry having to struggle with volume growth. However, Coca-Cola managed to bounce back after months of the share price suffering and after lowering their sales target, as they were up more than 6.0% in the afternoon.
Fresh data revealed today illustrated a drop in CPI to 1.5% in October from 1.7% in September, whilst core inflation remained the same at 1.7%. A drastic drop in energy prices due to the tariff cap which was imposed was one of the main culprits which caused CPI to fall. If CPI continues to struggle it could encourage the Bank of England to cut interest rates in the upcoming year, although some spectators suggest it would take a more drastic knock to economic data for them to actually take the plunge and do so.
Across the pond, Wall Street also had a difficult start to the day with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 both down 0.1%, and the Nasdaq down 0.2% in the opening trade as the market reacted cautiously to Fed news regarding the unlikely occurrence of interest rate cuts.
At the end of the day the FTSE 100 was down 0.19% at 7351 whilst the FTSE 250 suffered more closing 0.67% lower at 20289. At the same time, sterling was down 0.04% against the dollar at $1.284, and up 0.02% against the euro at €1.1665.