London midday: Stocks march higher again following brief dip on China retaliation
By Michele Maatouk
Date: Friday 11 Apr 2025
(Sharecast News) - London stocks were back in the black by midday on Friday, having briefly moved lower after China announced it was raising tariffs on US goods to 125% from 84%.
The FTSE 100 was up 0.8% at 7,974.45.
The change - due to take effect from Saturday - comes after Donald Trump increased tariffs on China to 145% on Thursday.
"Given that there is no longer any possibility of market acceptance for US goods exported to China under the current tariff levels, if the US side subsequently continues to impose tariffs on Chinese goods exported to the US, the Chinese side will pay no attention to it," China's foreign ministry said.
There was some good news on home shores, however, as figures from the Office for National Statistics showed the economy expanded by 0.5% on the month in February, comfortably beating consensus expectations for a 0.1% increase. This followed no growth in January, revised up from a 0.1% decline.
Services sector growth was 0.3% in February following a 0.1% expansion the month before, and was the largest contributor to the monthly expansion in GDP.
The data also showed that production output grew 1.5% following a 0.5% drop in January, revised up from a 0.9% fall. Construction output grew 0.4% in February following a 0.3% contraction the month before, revised down from a fall of 0.2%.
Liz McKeown, director of economic statistics at the ONS, said: "The economy grew strongly in February, with broad-based growth across both services and manufacturing.
"In services, we saw strong performances from sectors like computer programming, telecoms, and car dealerships. Meanwhile, in manufacturing, electronics and pharmaceuticals led the way, and car production also recovered after a run of weaker results.
"Looking at the broader picture, the economy has grown solidly over the past three months, with widespread gains across the services sector."
Ruth Gregory, deputy chief UK economist at Capital Economics, said the surprisingly strong 0.5% growth came as a pleasant surprise.
"But higher US tariffs, heightened uncertainty and April's rise in business taxes means February's resilience is unlikely to last."
In equity markets, gold miners shone, with Fresnillo, Hochschild and Endeavour all higher as the price of the yellow metal rallied.
Miners more generally were also up, with Glencore and Anglo American on the rise.
Energy giant BP fell after saying it expects to report lower first-quarter upstream production than in the previous three months.
In a trading update, the company said it saw slightly higher volumes in oil production and operations, but expected lower output in gas and low-carbon energy. Gas marketing and trading is expected to be "weak", it added.
BP was also affected by a downgrade to 'neutral' at UBS.
Croda fell after a downgrade to 'sell' at Goldman Sachs and Schroders dipped after a downgrade to 'underperform' at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Market Movers
FTSE 100 (UKX) 7,974.45 0.77%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 18,500.39 -0.09%
techMARK (TASX) 4,278.56 -0.18%
FTSE 100 - Risers
Fresnillo (FRES) 974.50p 5.58%
Tesco (TSCO) 324.00p 2.99%
Glencore (GLEN) 252.25p 2.96%
Anglo American (AAL) 1,944.00p 2.79%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 941.80p 2.50%
British American Tobacco (BATS) 3,164.00p 2.49%
Haleon (HLN) 373.70p 2.24%
Legal & General Group (LGEN) 232.80p 2.24%
Smith & Nephew (SN.) 978.80p 2.21%
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (DI) (CCEP) 6,730.00p 2.12%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 240.80p -1.99%
Smurfit Westrock (DI) (SWR) 3,072.00p -1.88%
Croda International (CRDA) 2,575.00p -1.83%
St James's Place (STJ) 846.00p -1.67%
CRH (CDI) (CRH) 6,386.00p -1.45%
Experian (EXPN) 3,371.00p -1.38%
Informa (INF) 674.80p -1.17%
Ashtead Group (AHT) 3,824.00p -1.16%
Babcock International Group (BAB) 683.00p -0.94%
3i Group (III) 3,844.00p -0.90%
FTSE 250 - Risers
Hochschild Mining (HOC) 292.60p 5.63%
Endeavour Mining (EDV) 1,981.00p 5.20%
Urban Logistics Reit (SHED) 129.00p 4.54%
Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) 115.50p 3.22%
Frasers Group (FRAS) 596.00p 2.94%
CMC Markets (CMCX) 219.00p 2.34%
Ocado Group (OCDO) 288.80p 2.23%
Foresight Group Holdings Limited NPV (FSG) 330.00p 2.17%
ICG Enterprise Trust (ICGT) 1,166.00p 2.10%
Vietnam Enterprise Investments (DI) (VEIL) 504.00p 1.82%
FTSE 250 - Fallers
Pagegroup (PAGE) 247.80p -5.92%
Ninety One (N91) 123.10p -4.65%
W.A.G Payment Solutions (WPS) 63.00p -4.26%
Spectris (SXS) 2,006.00p -3.74%
Renishaw (RSW) 2,235.00p -3.25%
Hays (HAS) 68.10p -3.20%
Marshalls (MSLH) 247.00p -2.76%
Quilter (QLT) 127.50p -2.67%
Ferrexpo (FXPO) 47.90p -2.64%
Genus (GNS) 1,652.00p -2.25%
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