Footsie flat as traders look for direction

Parliament didn’t sit yesterday but traders continued to speculate over every cough and splutter coming from the corridors of power in the UK and Europe.

The Prime Minister is still saying the UK can leave the EU by 31 October, the Europeans are deciding how long to grant a Brexit extension for, the Labour Party is either for or against a general election and no-one is any wiser on what will actually happen next.

As a result, the FTSE 100 closed out the week virtually flat - down 3.78 points at 7,324.47.

Uncertainty tends to affect the markets negatively, and through most of the day the FTSE 100 was down.

Barclays posted higher profits in the third quarter despite taking a £1.4bn hit for PPI claims.

The bank increased adjusted pre-tax profit by 16 per cent to £1.8bn for the three months to September, beating analysts’ expectations. Shares jumped 3.96p to 170.36p. Advertising giant WPP also beat expectations, with organic growth of 0.7 per cent in the third quarter, following major client wins including ebay and Mondelez.

Like-for-like revenues during the period increased by 1.9 per cent to £3.29bn, sending shares up 56p to 974.4p.

David Madden, market analyst at CMC Markets UK, said: “WPP seem to be turning a corner as the company saw quarterly revenue increase for the first time in over one year. The group has had to reorganise itself, and seeing as sales are growing again, it could be a sign the group is over the worst of its recent poor performance.”