FTSE 100 Slips Ahead Of Speeches At Jackson Hole Symposium

(RTTNews) - U.K. stocks are drifting down a bit on Thursday with investors largely staying cautious, digesting flash survey data on regional manufacturing and services sector activity, and looking ahead to the Jackson Hole Symposium.

The benchmark FTSE 100 was down 24.89 points or 0.27% at 9,263.25 a few minutes past noon.

Legal & General, Mondi, Coca-Cola HBC and Schroders are down 2 to 2.6%. Entain, JD Sports Fashion, Rentokil Initial, Croda International and Barratt Redrow are lower by 1.3 to 1.7%.

Easyjet, Relx, Intercontinental Hotels, Imperial Brands, Segro, Taylor Wimpey, IAG, Persimmon, Unite Group and 3i Group are also notably lower.

BAE Systems is rising nearly 2%. Babcock International and Whitbread are up 1.6% and 1.5%, respectively. Endeavour Mining, Fresnillo, Weir Group Holdings, Prudential, Polar Capital Technology Trust and Admiral Group are up with modest gains.

A report from the Office for National Statistics said the UK budget deficit narrowed in July to the lowest level for the month in three years, decreasing to GBP 1.1 billion from GBP 3.4 billion in the previous year.

Borrowing was below the GBP 2.1 billion shortfall projected by the Office for Budget Responsibility and also reached the lowest July borrowing for three years.

In the financial year to July, borrowing increased by GBP 6.7 billion from the same period last year to GBP 60.0 billion, which was the third-highest April to July borrowing on record.

Data showed that public sector net debt excluding public sector banks was estimated at 96.1% of gross domestic product at the end of July.

The HCOB Eurozone Composite PMI rose to 51.1 in August from 50.9 in the previous month, beating market expectations of a slowdown to 50.7 to mark the sharpest pace of expansion in the bloc's private sector output since May of the previous year, according to a flash estimate.

The services sector PMI reading came in with a score of 50.7 for August, down from 51.0 a month earlier, while the manufacturing PMI reading for August came in at 50.5, up from 49.8 in July.