Thanks for joining me. Labour’s landslide election victory has firmed up the pound and the FTSE 100.
Sterling was up 0.1pc while the UK’s benchmark stock index had gained 0.2pc in premarket trading as Sir Keir Starmer talked about “the sunlight of hope” descending on Britain.
5 things to start your day
1) British Gas threatens record number of businesses with bankruptcy | Number of winding-up orders filed by supplier triples amid high energy costs
2) Why Reeves has an economic mountain to climb to create a pro-growth Treasury | Labour’s attempt to transform the UK into an island of stability will be anything but simple
3) Laurence Olivier, Judy Garland and James Dean to narrate audiobooks from beyond the grave | App users will be able to pick clone of celebrities’ voices to read novels
4) Tech start-ups attack ‘Soviet’ plan to punish foreign flotations | Financial industry’s push to claw back taxpayer cash ‘dangerous’, say investors and trade bodies
5) Julian Jessop: Sorry kids, you are still too young to vote | The stakes are too high to hand 16-year-olds the power to decide the country’s future, as Labour proposes
What happened overnight
Asian shares were mostly lower after solid gains in Europe overnight, while the FTSE moved higher in premarket trading after Labour’s landslide election victory.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 topped 41,000 but then fell back from Thursday’s record close of 40,913.65.
The government in Tokyo reported higher prices dented consumer sentiment more than expected in May, with household spending falling 1.8pc.
Chinese markets were markedly weaker, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng down 1.1pc at 17,823.67 and the Shanghai Composite index giving up 0.9pc to 2,929.98. The Shanghai benchmark has been trading near its lowest levels since February.
The Kospi in Seoul jumped 1.3pc to 2,860.26 after Samsung Electronics forecast that its operating profit in the second quarter will balloon more than 15 times from a year earlier to 10.4 trillion won ($7.52 billion).
Like Nvidia, Taiwan’s TSMC, Tokyo Electron and other computer chip makers, Samsung is benefiting from a rebound in the semiconductor industry as applications using artificial intelligence take off.
Elsewhere in the region, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.2pc to 7,820.20. Taiwan’s Taiex edged 0.1pc higher and the SET in Bangkok was up 0.2pc.
With US markets closed on Thursday, attention was focused on Britain, where the future for the FTSE 100 was up 0.2pc as the Labour Party was headed for a landslide victory in the general election.
