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Drahi’s 18% BT stake is released
BT shares are up 2%, or 3.7p, to 160p after the government said it would take “no further action” over the 18% stake built by French billionaire Patrick Drahi.
Drahi’s Altice group recently took a 12% stake in the telecom giant and has since increased it.
While City insiders think he’s friendly towards BT and its management, led by Chief Executive Philip Jansen, the notion that Altice could own such an important company caused concern at a senior level.
Today the government said it was not investigating further, but might if Altice increased its stake again.
Read more about today’s BT developments
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Defensive stocks weaken the FTSE 100
A pullback for previously resilient defensive stocks, including British American Tobacco and United Utilities, meant the FTSE 100 index fell 34.75 points to 7499.04 today.
BAT and United shares fell nearly 2%, while heavyweights Vodafone and the London Stock Exchange fell more than 1%.
Defensive weakness ended the FTSE 100’s recent outperformance with European markets all trading in positive territory.
BT shares rose 2.3p to 158.6p after the government said it would not take action on the 18% stake built by French billionaire Patrick Drahi.
IAG shares were close to their opening level of 107.5p after last night announcing plans to cut 10,000 flights from the winter schedule. The stock lost 4.5% yesterday on fears of weakening consumer demand.
The FTSE 250 index fell 63.45 points to 19,435.89, with engineering group Wood falling 4.1p to 145.9p after its half-year results.
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Nasdaq down 2.5%, FTSE 100 remains steady
The tech-heavy Nasdaq closed more than 2.5% lower last night as worries of more aggressive rate hikes rattled stocks like Apple and Tesla.
The drop came ahead of the economic symposium this week in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is expected to reiterate the central bank’s focus on bringing inflation back to 2%.
The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2%, but futures markets are pointing to a positive start when trading resumes later.
Asian markets trailed Wall Street lower this morning but CMC Markets expects the FTSE 100’s resilience to hold after forecasting a fall of just 11 points to 7522.
The leading group fell a marginal 0.2% yesterday, reflecting support from defensive stocks and the benefit of the dollar’s strength to overseas stocks.
The pound is at its weakest since March 2020, under $1.18, on the back of the deteriorating economic outlook amid rising energy prices and the dollar’s momentum as traders forecast another hike in interest rates of at least 0.5% over the next month % forecast.
Oil prices fell as much as 4.5% yesterday on the potential return of Iranian production but later recovered to nearly $97 a barrel after Saudi Arabia said the disconnect between volatile markets and underlying fundamentals pushed OPEC+ to do so could force production to be cut back.
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