- FTSE 100 flat; FTSE 250 up 0.1%
- Defence shares slide on Ukraine peace hopes
- International Personal Finance surges on buyout news
Dec 29 (Reuters) - London’s FTSE 100 edged lower on Monday, as prospects of a potential Russia-Ukraine ceasefire weighed on defence stocks in the final trading week of the year.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy were "getting a lot closer, maybe very close" to an agreement to end the war in Ukraine, prompting a selloff in defence stocks in UK and Europe.
Babcock International dropped 3%, Chemring Group shed 1.5%, while BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce fell 1.3% and 1.1%, respectively. The FTSE index of aerospace and defence slipped 1.2%.
The UK's blue-chip FTSE 100 was at 9,874.96 points at 1023 GMT, while the domestically focussed midcap FTSE 250 index edged up 0.1% in quiet trading after a long weekend.
Volumes are expected to remain subdued in another holiday-shortened week, with UK markets set to close early on Wednesday and stay shut on Thursday for the New Year break.
Geopolitical tensions fuelled a rally in defence stocks, which, together with miners and banks, emerged as the key drivers behind the FTSE 100’s 20.7% surge this year, leaving it on track for its fifth straight annual advance and outstripping the pan-European STOXX 600's 15.8% and Wall Street benchmark S&P 500's 17.8% year-to-date rise.
Industrial metal miners were up 0.9% after copper set a record as last week's sharp rally in Shanghai spilled into a Christmas holiday-curtailed global market.
Among individual stocks, British lender International rose 5.4% after it agreed to a 543 million-pound ($732.5 million) takeover by a company associated with BasePoint Capital.
Reporting by Tharuniyaa Lakshmi in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala
Source: Reuters