London shares are trading higher on Monday, with banks leading the FTSE 100 while Brent crude held above $100 a barrel.
In early trading, the FTSE 100 is up 0.5% and the FTSE 250 up 0.2%. The DAX rose 0.6%, the CAC 40 0.4% and the Stoxx 50 0.4%.
FTSE 100 risers and fallers
Lion Finance Group has risen 2.10%, ConvaTec 2.09%, HSBC 2.08%, Standard Life 2.00% and Standard Chartered 1.65%. Standard Chartered published a routine buyback notice.
Meanwhile, Informa is down 3.08%, WPP has declined 1.11%, Vodafone is trading 0.97% lower and BP has dropped 0.92%.
Mid-cap news
Recruiter Hays fell 10.82% following its first-quarter trading statement.
Pennon, which owns South West Water, fell 10.25%. On Friday, RBC Capital Markets downgraded the stock to sector perform from outperform and cut its target to 400p from 575p, citing “a challenging outlook across AMP8 for returns/earnings”.
Adding to the pressure on the stock, Deutsche Bank today cut its rating to hold from buy and lowered the price target to 380p from 550p, telling investors that “the near-term buy case now looks increasingly difficult, for several reasons.”
AEP Plantations fell 7.74%, even though its nine-month statement showed own fruit bunch production up 13.3% and crude palm oil production up 17.9%. The board said it “remains confident in delivering results in line with market expectations for the full year, 2026”. GlobalData rose 5.06%, Amaroq 4.70% and Helios Towers 4.44%.
US-Iran latest
In commodities, Brent is down 0.3% to $104.46, WTI has fallen 0.3% to $91.57 and gold has lost 0.3% to $4,179. GBPUSD is flat at 1.3236.
Over the weekend, Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Airport was attacked, while there had been reports of a new attack on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport, attributed to the Houthis.
Meanwhile, Iran’s security chief Mohsen Rezaei reportedly told Press TV the US had “accepted some of our conditions while others remain unclear”, but “we consider their response inadequate.”
Furthermore, US President Trump has claimed that Russia and Ukraine have agreed to an “energy ceasefire”.
Other updates
Elsewhere, Metlen, a FTSE 100 constituent, signed a collaboration agreement with Thales Alenia Space and Thales Hellas on Greece’s future defence telecommunications space programme, with no contract value stated.
Ithaca Energy agreed to extend its $1.8bn reserve-based lending facility (a bank loan secured on oil reserves) to 31 December 2032, once effective, with improved pricing.
