Interest rate anticipation mutes FTSE
Markets were relatively quiet as traders awaited the upcoming interest rate decision from the Bank of England.
The FTSE 100 closed the session 0.46 points lower at 7,700.9, remaining at around the level it reached by the end of last week.
Analysts widely expect the central bank’s monetary policy committee to raise the benchmark rate to 0.75 per cent this Thursday.
Traders are also poised for a raft of updates from banks including Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and Standard Chartered.
In currency markets, sterling was up 0.3 per cent against the dollar at $1.314, and was up 0.07 per cent against the euro at €1.122 in late afternoon.
Reach – the publisher of the Daily Record and Daily Mirror and Express newspapers, formerly known as Trinity Mirror – swung to a halfyear loss after a slowdown in local advertising forced it to write down the value of its regional titles, knocking shares by 2.7p to 70.1p.
Shares in Hiscox jumped by 107p to 1,580p when the insurance firm unveiled a rise in profits, having navigated eye-watering costs on the back of multiple natural disasters in 2017.
Clydesdale Bank owner CYBG closed 0.8p lower at 337p after its interim results showed a reduction in mortgage drawdowns, and an analyst warned it could now be on track for a full-year loss.
The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 included Vodafone Group, up 6.5p to 186.5p, and St James’s Place, up 28p to 1,216.5p. The biggest fallers included Sage Group, down 33.2p to 612.8p, and Pearson down 27.4p to 930p.