Footsie down as trade war fears persist

Market report Perry Gourley

Stock markets were again rattled by signs of a global trade war, with China poised to retaliate after US president Donald Trump’s administration planned to introduce tariffs on the Asian giant’s imports.

The FTSE 100 ended the day down 30.65 points at 6,921.94, but fared better than European peers including the French Cac 40 and German Dax which fell 1.4 per cent and 1.7 per cent, respectively.

David Madden, a market analyst at CMC Markets, said: “Beijing is hitting back at the US in a measured way, as China looks to impose tariffs on approximately $3 billion worth of US imports.

“This is only the beginning of the economic standoff between the two largest economies in the world, and investors are jittery.” News that Glaxosmithkline had pulled out of the race to buy Pfizer’s consumer healthcare business sent shares up 41.8p to 1,315.6p.

The group suggested the deal did not meet its investment criteria.

Smiths Group was the worst performing stock on the FTSE 100, down 67.5p at 1,468.5p as the engineering firm reported a 42 per cent slump in profits, having been knocked by higher research and development spending and the phasing in of a new detection business.

Aviva fell 10.9p to 493.1p after succumbing to shareholder pressure and rowing back on a controversial proposal to cancel £450 million worth of preference shares.

Fevertree slumped 150p to 2,807p. It came as one of the mixer maker’s founders offloaded a 2.6 per cent stake in the business worth £82.5m.