The oil price fell back amid continued hopes for a peace deal between the US and Iran.
\nThe FTSE 100 struggled on Thursday on a mixed day for stocks in London, and despite fresh falls in the oil price, as investors await fresh developments in the Middle East.
\n\u201cThe wild streak of enthusiasm which hit markets amid hopes for a major de-escalation in the Iran conflict is tempering,\u201d said Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s a realisation that there are more hurdles to climb for a longer-term resolution to be agreed, even though Iran is reported to be studying a US peace proposal aimed at formally ending the conflict.\u201d
\nThe FTSE 100 closed down 161.71 points, 1.6%, at 10,276.95. The FTSE 250 ended up 50.30 points, 0.2%, at 22,882.72, and the AIM All-Share rose 9.70 points, 1.2%, at 818.32.
\nThe oil price fell back amid continued hopes for a peace deal between the US and Iran.
\nUS President Donald Trump said an agreement could be near after positive talks, with Iran adding that it would pass on its latest position to mediator Pakistan.
\nBrent crude for July delivery was trading at 97.76 dollars a barrel on Thursday, down compared with 102.12 dollars at the time of the equities close in London on Wednesday.
\nBut with no fresh news to drive further gains, equity markets took a breather, with European markets following London lower.
\nIn European equities on Thursday, the CAC 40 in Paris ended down 1.2%, and the DAX 40 in Frankfurt ebbed 1.0%.
\n\u201cHaving rallied strongly over the past two sessions, bouncing back from their sharp sell-off at the beginning of the week, there\u2019s been some evidence of profit-taking today,\u201d said David Morrison, senior market analyst at Trade Nation.
\n\u201cInvestors appear to be expressing some caution and taking some risk off the table as yesterday\u2019s euphoria on hopes of a quick end to the US\/Iran war start to fade. While yesterday\u2019s report of a one-page memorandum for ending hostilities is the most optimistic news for several weeks, it does look as if there are some high hurdles to jump for Tehran to accept.\u201d
\nIn New York, markets were mixed, as the record-breaking recent run showed few signs of running out of steam.
\nThe Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.2%, the S&P 500 rose 0.1% while the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.5%.
\nThe yield on the US 10-year Treasury widened to 4.36% on Thursday from 4.35% on Wednesday. The yield on the US 30-year Treasury was at 4.95% on Thursday, up from 4.94%.
\nThe pound firmed to 1.3616 dollars on Thursday afternoon from 1.3602 dollars on Wednesday. Against the euro, sterling was little changed at 1.1567 euros from 1.1566 euros on Wednesday.
\nThe euro traded higher against the greenback, at 1.1768 dollars on Thursday from 1.1756 dollars on Wednesday. Against the yen, the dollar was trading at 156.41 yen, higher than 156.27 yen.
\nFriday sees the closely watched US jobs report. Goldman Sachs estimates nonfarm payrolls rose by 70,000 in March, slightly above consensus of 65,000.
\nOn the positive side, Goldman expects a 32,000 boost from the end of worker strikes and a moderate tailwind from sequentially better weather after poor weather likely weighed on February payroll growth.
\nOn the negative side, the broker expects a 5,000 decline in government payrolls. Goldman expects the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.4% in March.
\nBack in London, and investors ploughed through a slew of trading updates and earnings.
\nOn the FTSE 100, JD Sports Fashion took the gold medal, up 7.4%, as an improved free cash flow position offset a continued struggling sales performance.
\nDeutsche Bank called it a \u201cmixed bag\u201d with in line full-year pre-tax profit, a sequential slowdown in like-for-like sales, 2027 profit guidance around 4% below consensus at the midpoint but a \u201cwelcome\u201d free cash beat combined with a new capital return framework of growing dividends and a rolling \u00a3200 million share buyback.
\nInsuer Hiscox also fared well, rising 5.4%, as it said the outlook for 2026 is \u201cpositive\u201d and reporting accelerating growth in its retail business.
\nChief executive Aki Hussain said: \u201cHiscox is building on strong momentum delivered in 2025, through capturing diverse, high-quality growth opportunities across each of our businesses.\u201d
\nThe rising gold price lifted Fresnillo and Endeavour Mining for the second day in a row, up 5.8% and 5.1% respectively.
\nGold traded higher at 4,742.97 dollars an ounce on Thursday, from 4,692.73 dollars on Wednesday.
\nWeighing on the FTSE 100, Relx fell 6.2% as it traded ex-dividend and as Morgan Stanley downgraded its rating to \u2018equal weight\u2019.
\nWhile Shell fell back 2.9%, amid the oil price falls, and as investors weighed first quarter numbers.
\nThe London-based oil major reported profit well ahead of consensus and said it was rebalancing its shareholder distributions.
\nShell raised its quarterly dividend by 5% from the prior quarter, but trimmed its quarterly buyback to three billion dollars from 3.5 billion dollars.
\nOn the FTSE 250, Helios Towers surged 14% as it raised guidance for 2026 adjusted earnings to reflect a \u201csignificant\u201d tenancy pipeline amid \u201cexceptionally strong\u201d demand for data.
\n\u201cDemand for data and connectivity across Africa and the Middle East remains exceptionally strong, with our mobile operator customers accelerating investment, driving significantly increased demand for our infrastructure,\u201d said chief executive Tom Greenwood.
\nThe biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were JD Sports Fashion, up 5.00p at 73.00p, Fresnillo, up 201.00p at 3,663.00p, Hiscox, up 84.00p at 1,634.00p, Endeavour Mining, up 238.00p at 4,916.00p, and Autotrader, up 20.60p at 520.80p.
\nThe biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were Relx, down 163.00p at 2,462.00p, Admiral, down 181.00p at 3,165.00p, Centrica, down 10.80p at 198.70p, BAE Systems, down 97.70p at 1,991.80p, and Smiths Group, down 78.00p at 2,522.00p.
\nFriday\u2019s global economic calendar has the US jobs report, including nonfarm payrolls, Canada unemployment figures, German trade and industrial production data and the Halifax house price index in the UK.
\nFriday\u2019s local corporate calendar has full-year results from Airtel Africa.
\nContributed by Alliance News
\n#StockMarket #FTSE100 #OilPrices #MiddleEastPeace #USIranDeal #GlobalEconomy #MarketAnalysis #CorporateEarnings #InvestmentNews #FinancialMarkets<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The oil price fell back amid continued hopes for a peace deal between the US and Iran. The FTSE 100 struggled on Thursday on a mixed day for stocks in London, and despite fresh falls in the oil price, as investors await fresh developments in the Middle East. \u201cThe wild streak of enthusiasm which hit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}