Tech stocks push Wall Street higher as FTSE closes in the green

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All of the “Magnificent Seven” stocks gained in early trading, including Nvidia (NVDA) and Tesla (TSLA). Shares of Apple (AAPL) rose 1% to touch a new record.

Tech stocks helped lift the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) to record intraday highs on Monday.

RBC Capital Markets downgraded Persimmon (PSN.L) and Vistry as it took a look at UK housebuilders. Barratt Redrow (BTRW.L) and Crest Nicholson (CRST.L) were upgraded.

Vistry (VTY.L) now looks set to exit the FTSE 100 (^FTSE) after the downgrade, which sent shares down by 4% and put the social housing-focused builder firmly in demotion territory.

RBC said Vistry has issued two profit warnings in as many months. “Whilst we are not saying things necessarily come in threes we believe that whilst provisions and cost calculations remain unaudited there are risks to the downside,” RBC said.

“In addition, with many of its peers trading below book value we believe that the risk/reward trade-off has not moved in Vistry’s favour.” RBC slashed its price target on Vistry to 500p from 825p.

Jaguar’s controversial new concept electric car has been leaked online — showing the vehicle in Barbie pink.

The Telegraph has the details:

Images appearing to show the new model have been posted on X by Autocar magazine showing the sleek, low-slung vehicle with a long bonnet and wide grille.

The car, which will be officially unveiled at Miami Art Week tonight, is shown in bold pink and metallic blue.

The hot pink vehicle has drawn comparisons with the FAB 1 car driven by Lady Penelope in the Thunderbirds and the Barbie car. Others have suggested that Jaguar should be renamed Pink Panther in light of the overhaul.

The styling suggests a marked gear change from traditional Jaguar models as the British car maker prepares for a new generation of electric models.

The company has been gearing up for its relaunch for weeks, attracting criticism online for seemingly abandoning its traditional customers in favour of a younger new market.

The leaked images of the concept car features slim, LED lights and large alloy wheels. It does not have a rear windscreen, instead boasting a rear-view camera on each side.

Wall Street opened higher on Monday as new data showed that US manufacturing stabilised in November.

Data provider S&P Global said that optimism at US factories rebounded thanks to a steady stream of new orders and a slowdown in rising costs.

This lifted the US manufacturing PMI index up to 49.7 from 48.5 in October.

Purchases of raw materials and parts from abroad may have been lifted by the threat of tariffs, with some US producers trying to front-run possible new trade costs.

Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said:

Nearly half of UK mortgage holders are set to see their payments rise over the next three years, according to the Bank of England (BoE). The central bank estimates that around 4.4 million mortgages will experience higher payments by 2027, with 420,000 households facing hikes of £500 per month.

In addition, between 1 million and 1.5 million people are expected to see a second rate increase, having already fixed their mortgages at higher prices since interest rates began to rise in the second half of 2021. About 31% of all mortgage holders, or approximately 2.7 million people, are predicted to refinance at rates higher than 3% for the first time before the final quarter of 2027.

The Bank of England’s Financial Stability Report also noted that 37% of households with mortgages have not yet fixed their rates since the interest rate increases began in 2021. As a result, a typical household coming off a fixed-rate mortgage within the next two years could see an increase of approximately £146 per month in their payments.

However, there is some relief for others, as about 27% of mortgage holders, or 2.4 million people, are expected to see their monthly payments decrease by the end of 2027, after already experiencing rate hikes.

Read more on Yahoo Finance UK

The price of oil rose on the back of the news that factory output in China picked up last month.

Brent crude gained more than 1.3% to €72.80 a barrel as new orders rose at the quickest pace since February last year in the world’s second largest economy. This was thanks to renewed export growth.

Oil prices have been suppressed amid concerns about weak demand from China, which is the world’s largest crude importer.

Analysts at Saxo said Brent was “trading higher on signs of a slow recovery in China’s economy”.

St James’s Place is set to cut around 500 jobs in the coming months as it faces intensifying competitive pressures.

It comes as the British wealth manager unveiled a cost-cutting plan to save £100m earlier this year.

A spokesperson for St James’s Place said:

XRP (XRP-USD), the native crypto token of XRP Ledger, was the winner of the digital asset market on Monday, rallying as much as 21% into the day as it became the world’s third largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

The amount of money flowing in pushed the coin’s market cap to $142bn, outstripping stablecoin Tether’s (USDT-USD) $134.5bn. It now only sits behind bitcoin (BTC-USD) and ethereum (ETH-USD) in terms of market cap.

Over the past month the price of XRP has pumped almost 350% as traders look to a more favourable regulatory environment when president-elect Donald Trump takes office on 20 January. XRP has been the subject of a court case directed at Ripple, in which the Securities and Exchange Commission argued that XRP is an unregistered security.

Ripple is a payment platform which uses XRP to facilitate transactions between financial institutions, businesses, and organisations.

Fox reported on Friday that Ripple is also close to getting approval from New York’s crypto regulator for its own stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. The move would give Ripple customers an alternative to XRP, which has been historically volatile.

The run-up to Christmas is such a hectic time of year that when we face a setback, it’s easy to lose our cool.

If we’ve spent ages looking forward to a festive celebration that goes wrong, if any of our deliveries don’t show up, or if the wrong items arrive — or they’re broken — it can feel like the final straw.

That’s the main reason why the first week of December is Anger Awareness Week, devoted to helping people understand their anger and find a better way of dealing with it.

The problem with letting your fury get the better of you is that it can make it much harder to sort the problem out.

So instead of blowing your top, it’s worth following the five Rs of making a successful complaint.

Find out what they are here

December is likely to provide compelling opportunities for investors to continue putting new money into the market, says the chief executive of deVeres.

He said:

Investor confidence is underpinned by the belief that the incoming Trump administration’s agenda will introduce meaningful changes aimed at stimulating economic expansion.

Unemployment in the eurozone remained at a record low of 6.3% in October, data provider Eurostat said on Monday, down from 6.6% in the same month last year.

Moody’s Analytics’ senior economist Kamil Kovar, said:

Here’s a quick look at what’s happening in equity markets so far:

• Housebuilders Persimmon (PSN.L) and Vistry (VTY.L) were both under the cosh after downgrades to ‘underperform’ from ‘sector perform’ at RBC Capital Markets.

• As far Persimmon is concerned, RBC said third-quarter commentary on build costs and building regulation planning changes lead it to believe that the embedded margins in its landbank may be at risk of downgrades come the full-year results.

• “It has invested in build and quality, but housebuilding is not a zero-sum game, and lower margins may lead to a lower premium for Persimmon in 2025,” it said.

• It noted that Vistry has issued two profit warnings in as many months. “Whilst we are not saying things necessarily come in threes we believe that whilst provisions and cost calculations remain unaudited there are risks to the downside,” RBC said.

• “In addition, with many of its peers trading below book value we believe that the risk/reward trade-off has not moved in Vistry’s favour.”

• Taylor Wimpey (TW.L) also fell even as RBC retained its ‘outperform’ rating on the stock, saying it continues to believe it’s is one of the UK’s best placed housebuilders to take advantage of planning reform.

• BAE Systems (BA.L) was a little firmer as Citi reiterated its ‘buy’ recommendation on the shares after they slumped on Friday on the back of a downgrade by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Topps Tiles (TPT.L) has defended its performance in recent years after one of its largest shareholders criticised what it called a series of “costly blunders”.

Austrian investor MS Galleon, is calling for an overhaul of the group’s senior management and strategy.

It comes after Piotr Lipko, managing director of MS Galleon, wrote to Topps Tiles’ chairman Paul Forman last week claiming that management had shown a “complete failure” to adapt to the changing retail landscape, according to The Sunday Times.

The homeware retailer said it is “continuing to take market share in a difficult trading environment, adding that a 5.4% decline in annual adjusted revenues was “a substantial out-performance of an overall market which was estimated to be down 10%-15%”.

The firm revealed last week that its pre-tax profit for the year nearly halved, down to £6.3m from £12.5m the year prior.

Full year revenue was at £248.5m for the year ending 28 September, down from £262.7m in 2023

Topps Tiles said on Monday:

Gold prices are edging lower in early Monday trading, pressured by rising Treasury yields and a strengthening US dollar.

Ricardo Evangelista, senior ActivTrades analyst, said:

The French stock market fell sharply this morning as a budget standoff leaves the country’s government at risk of collapse.

The CAC 40 (^FCHI) index dropped as much as 1.2%, before later recovering, with the euro trading at around 14-month lows.

It comes as French prime minister Michel Barnier is set to present a social security financing plan today that has faced strong opposition from across the political spectrum.

Marine Le Pen, the parliamentary leader of the hard-Right National Rally (RN), opposes several aspects of the government’s 2025 budget plan, including the social security financing project.

These include planned cuts in employer social contributions, a partial end to inflation-indexing of pensions and a less generous prescription drug reimbursement policy.

Lacking a majority, Barnier could use executive powers to force through the legislation without a vote. But this would expose him to a vote of no confidence within days, with the left wing and Le Pen’s RN willing to back a motion to bring down the government.

Analysts at Rabobank said:

The UK manufacturing sector showed further signs of contraction in November, as output fell for the first time in seven months following the sharpest retrenchment in new order intakes since February.

Ongoing concerns surrounding the economic outlook, costs and weak demand meanwhile led to cutbacks in staffing, purchasing and inventory holdings.

UK manufacturing PMI down to 48.0 in November, from 49.9 in October, showing a contraction for the second month running.

Manufacturing output declined in November, as weaker demand from domestic and overseas clients led to a scaling back of production volumes.

Intakes of new business fell for the second month in a row, with the rate of contraction reaching a nine-month high.

By far the sharpest drop in new work was seen in the intermediate goods industry, suggesting especially weak demand in the B2B sector. New work intakes also fell at consumer and investment goods producers.

Rob Dobson, director at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said:

Vapes and batteries maker Supreme (SUP.L) has bought collapsed tea maker Typhoo out of administration.

Typhoo fell into administration last Wednesday after its pre-tax losses rose from £9.6m to £38m. Its sales fell from £33.7m to £25.3m, according to its latest results which covered the year to the end of September 2023.

London-listed Supreme said it will pay a total of £10.2m to buy Typhoo, in a deal which values the brand’s stock and trade debts at £7.5m.

The move is part of a strategy to expand its operations away from vaping, after buying soft drinks business Clearly Drinks earlier this year, before a government crackdown on disposable vapes.

Sandy Chadha, chief executive of Supreme, said: