FTSE 100 Modestly Lower In Cautious Trade

(RTTNews) - The UK market is off early lows in late morning trade on Tuesday with investors largely making stock specific moves, reacting to quarterly earnings updates. Worries about trade war following new U.S. tariffs against China, Canada and Mexico taking effect today.

The benchmark FTSE 100, which dropped to 8,805.31 in early trades, was down 38.33 points or 0.43% at 8,832.98 a little while ago.

Smurfit Westrock, Ashtead Group and IAG are down 5.1%, 5% and 4.8%, respectively. BP is down 4.2% and WPP is lower by about 4%.

Barclays Group, Pershing Square Holdings, Scottish Mortgage, Intermediate Capital, Glencore, Easyjet, Natwest Group, Shell, IMI, 3i Group, Vistry Group, Convatec and B&M European Value Retail are declining 2 to 3.7%.

Insurance company Beazley Plc is down marginally despite reporting higher earnings. For the full year, the company posted pre-tax profit of $1.42 billion in fiscal 2024, up from $1.25 billion a year ago.

Direct Line Insurance Group shares are down marginally. The company reported fiscal 2024 profit before tax of 218.4 million pounds compared to 277.4 million pounds, last year. Earnings per share was 11.1 pence compared to 15.7 pence.

Intertek Group is rising nearly 8% after the company reported a jump in pre-tax profit for fiscal 2024. In the fiscal year ending December 31, pre-tax income was GBP 490 million, up from GBP 422.3 million last year, the company said. Net Income also came higher at GBP 367.2 million compared with GBP 318.1 million prior year, and earnings per share were 212.7 pence versus 183.4 pence in the previous year.

Fresnillo is gaining 3.5%, Severn Trent is up 3%, Rolls-Royce Holdings is advancing 2.5%, Tesco is up 2.3%, Marks & Spencer is climbing up 3.1%, British Amercian Tobacco is up 2% and Pearson is rising 2.1%.

BAE Systems, AstraZeneca, United Utilities, Coca-Cola HBC, GSK, National Grid, Unilever, Haleon and Reckitt Benckiser are also up sharply.