Reuters: Hot Stocks: Britain's FTSE falls as stimulus doubts slow down rally

Reuters: Hot Stocks Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Britain's FTSE falls as stimulus doubts slow down rally May 31st 2013, 12:17 Fri May 31, 2013 8:17am EDT * FTSE down 0.8 pct to 6,601.12 pts * Index down for 2nd week as 12-month rally slows * Any bad U.S. data seen as good news By Francesco Canepa LONDON, May 31 (Reuters) - Britain's top share index fell on Friday and was heading for its second consecutive weekly loss as investors took profits on a year-long rally on concerns about a scaling back of U.S. monetary stimulus. The blue-chip FTSE 100 index was down 55.9 points, or 0.8 percent, at 6,601.12 points at 1205 GMT, falling into negative territory for the week. A rally started in June 2012 largely fuelled by global money printing has slowed down in the last couple of weeks on speculation the U.S. Federal Reserve may taper its asset-purchase programme. "A feature of trading over the last couple of weeks is that we've had a number of long-only equity clients who were either trimming their positions or taking the index 'short' against those positions as a hedge," Matt Basi, head of UK sales trading at CMC Markets, said. Basi added any sign of economic weakness in the U.S. would be welcomed by investors looking for a reason for the Fed to stick to its quantitative easing (QE) programme, which has helped UK equities rise 25 percent in the past year despite a shrinking European economy. U.S. personal income and PCE inflation data for April, due to be published at 1230 GMT and both expected to show a 0.1 percent monthly increase, will give the market an indication of how far the U.S. economy is to meeting the Fed's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) targets. "(Data in line with consensus) for the dovish FOMC majority should be more than enough reason to persist with the current $85 billion pace of monthly QE," Andy Ash, head of sales at Monument Securities, said in an email to clients. "The scheduled agenda is not short of important data, though whether it proves to be directionally significant is a rather different proposition, especially given that those who have taken profits or squared out positions will probably want to wait for next week's array of events." The European Central Bank is due to hold its monthly rate-setting meeting on Thursday, while U.S. non-farm payrolls data is due to be published on Friday. (Reporting By Francesco Canepa/editing by Chris Pizzey, London MPG Desk, +44 (0)207 542-4441) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions