Reuters: Hot Stocks: UK FTSE falls on worries payrolls could spur Fed policy move

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

UK FTSE falls on worries payrolls could spur Fed policy move Nov 8th 2013, 12:04 Fri Nov 8, 2013 7:04am EST * FTSE 100 down 0.5 pct at 6,666.95 pts * Focus on U.S. non-farm payrolls at 1330 GMT, seen at 125k * Investors worry strong reading would bring forward QE cut * 20 pct consensus beat/miss would trigger selloff - City Index * ICAG, Rolls rally after strong updates By Francesco Canepa LONDON, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Britain's top shares fell on Friday as investors worried that any fresh sign of strength in the U.S. jobs market may bring forward a reduction to the Federal Reserve's equity-friendly monetary stimulus programme. Positive updates from airline IAG and the world's second-largest maker of aircraft engines, Rolls Royce, sent the two heavily traded stocks to the top of the FTSE 100 . After estimate-beating U.S. economic output data on Thursday, investors were awaiting October non-farm payrolls figures at 1330 GMT for more clues on when the Fed would start to trim its asset-buying scheme, which has helped the FTSE 100 rise 18 percent since it was announced in September 2012. The British index was down 30.3 points, or 0.5 percent, at a 2-1/2 week low of 6,666.96 points at 1127 GMT. The index has fallen 2.3 percent since hitting a five-month high on Oct 30. Economists forecast 125,000 U.S. jobs were created in October, slowing from 148,000 jobs in September due to the impact of the U.S. government shutdown. "If it comes in 20 percent either side (of consensus) we would expect some sort of negative reaction," Lee Curtis, a sales trader at City Index, said. "Most of our clients have been anticipating a selloff going into the six weeks or so to Christmas... before any further buying takes place." While a higher reading would point to strength in the world's largest economy, it could also mean the Fed might start scaling back its quantitative easing (QE) programme earlier than March, the market's current expectations. "If the non-farms are much better than expected... that will bring the possibility of some sort of QE tapering in December," Richard Hunter, head of equities at Hargreaves Lansdown, said. He thought a jobs number over 150,000 could trigger a 100-point drop on the FTSE 100. Conversely, a figure under 100,000 could see the index climb 1-2 percent, he said. The FTSE was trading at 12.5 times its expected earnings for the next 12 months, its highest valuation multiples since early 2010, Datastream data showed, having rallied steadily thanks to QE at a time when profit expectations continued to fall. Of the 175 companies in the STOXX 600 that have reported earnings to date for third quarter, 44 percent have beaten analyst's earnings expectations - lower than the long-term average of 49 percent, Thomson Reuters StarMine data showed. ICAG climbed 5.7 percent after third-quarter profit more than doubled while Rolls Royce was up 3.2 percent after raising its profit guidance for its defence aerospace unit. Volume on the stocks was 115 percent and 71.8 percent of their respective averages for the past three months, compared with just a fifth of the average for the FTSE, as traders held fire before the payrolls data. (Additional reporting reporting by Tricia Wright; Editing by Ruth Pitchford) Link this Share this Digg this Email Print 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