FTSE 100 Moderately Lower As Geopolitical Tensions Weigh On Sentiment

(RTTNews) - U.K. market's equity index FTSE 100 drifted lower Monday morning, in line with other major markets in Europe, amid rising geopolitical tensions following U.S. President Donald Trump's desire to take Greenland.

Trump today doubled down on his plan to acquire Greenland, saying NATO had warned Denmark for years about the "Russian threat" to Greenland and claimed Copenhagen had failed to act.

"Now it is time, and it will be done!!!" Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform ahead of this week's World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos.

The U.S. President's announcement of a 10% tariff on several EU countries from next month, which raises the tariff on all imports to US to 25%, and reports that EU is consideriang retaliatory move against the U.S. weighed on stocks.

The EU is reported to be considering tariffs of 93 billion euros of US goods or restricting US firms' access to its internal market.

The FTSE 100 dropped to 10,163.80 this morning, and was down 62.54 points or 0.61% at 10,172.75 a little while ago.

Diploma slid nearly 4%, Convatec Group drifted down nearly 3%, while Burberry Group, Spirax Group, Natwest, Croda International, Howeden Joinery, St. James's Place, Halma, Intecontinental Hotels Group, Barclays, Diageon, Games Workshop and ICG lost 2 to 1.8%.

Smith & Nephew, Ashtead Group, Informa, Schroders, Pearson, Smiths Group, Lloyds Banking Group, Relx and Melrose Industries also declined sharply.

Shares of mining companies found some support. Fresnillo surged more than 4% and Endeavour Mining gained 1.8%, while Antofagasta advanced by 0.7%.

BT Group, British American Tobacco, Severn Trent, Imperial Brands, Babcock International, Sainsbury (J), Vodafone Group, Whitbread, BAE Systems and Tesco gained 0.8 to 1.7%.

In European economic news, Eurozone inflation eased more than initially estimated in December, final data from Eurostat showed.

The harmonized index of consumer prices rose by revised 1.9% year-on-year following an increase of 2.1% in each of the previous two months.

Eurostat initially reported that inflation hit the 2% target in December.

Core inflation, which excludes prices of energy and fresh food, slowed to 2.3%, in line with estimate, from 2.4% logged in the previous three months.

Energy prices decreased 1.9% year-on-year after a 0.5% drop in the previous month. The decline was the worst since August when they fell 2%. Services inflation softened marginally to 3.4% from 3.5%.

The HICP rose 0.2% month-on-month in December, in line with the initial estimate released on January 7.