ADVFN Morning London Market Report: Monday 14 Mar 2016

London open: Stocks track gains in Asia

UK stocks rose on Monday, tracking gains in Asia as an improvement in China’s fixed asset investment offset worse-than-expected industrial production and retail sales figures.

China’s fixed-asset investment growth accelerated to 10.2% year-on-year in the January to February period, beating forecasts of 9.5% and compared with 10% the prior period.

Industrial output growth slowed to 5.4% year-on-year between January and February, missing analysts’ estimates of 5.6% after an increase of 5.9% the prior month.

Retail sales growth cooled to 10.2% on an annual basis, falling short of forecast for a 10.8% rise after a 11.1% gain the previous month.

While Monday’s economic calendar is quiet, a busy week lies ahead with the Bank of Japan’s policy decision on Tuesday, the UK Budget 2016 and the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision on Wednesday followed by the Bank of England’s policy announcement on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the UK commodities market shrugged off another decline in oil prices. At 0900 GMT, Brent crude dropped 1.3% to $39.89 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate slid 1.5% to $37.92 per barrel.

Mining stocks rallied as base metal prices rose with Anglo American, Glencore and BHP Billiton topping the FTSE 100.

Among corporate stocks, Admiral slumped after Bank of America Merrill Lynch downgraded the company to ‘underperform’ from ‘neutral’.

SSE advanced as it said it has signed agreements for the sale of 49.9% of its operational 349.6MW Clyde Wind Farm to

Greencoat UK Wind and GMPF & LPFA Infrastructure LLP for a headline £355m.

Royal Bank of Scotland declined on news it is cutting 550 jobs as part of a plan to reduce its investment advice team.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR FREE ON ADVFN, the world's leading stocks and shares information website, provides the private investor with all the latest high-tech trading tools and includes live price data streaming, stock quotes and the option to access 'Level 2' data on all of the world's key exchanges (LSE, NYSE, NASDAQ, Euronext etc).

This area of the ADVFN.com site is for independent financial commentary. These blogs are provided by independent authors via a common carrier platform and do not represent the opinions of ADVFN Ltd. ADVFN Ltd does not monitor, approve, endorse or exert editorial control over these articles and does not therefore accept responsibility for or make any warranties in connection with or recommend that you or any third party rely on such information. The information available at ADVFN.com is for your general information and use and is not intended to address your particular requirements. In particular, the information does not constitute any form of advice or recommendation by ADVFN.COM and is not intended to be relied upon by users in making (or refraining from making) any investment decisions. Authors may or may not have positions in stocks that they are discussing but it should be considered very likely that their opinions are aligned with their trading and that they hold positions in companies, forex, commodities and other instruments they discuss.

WHAT IS ADVFN?

ADVFN covers all things stock market.

From the news and opinion pieces on pages like this to share discussion forums, charting tools, financials, live share prices and Level 2, order book data

If you trade or invest ADVFN has the tools you need to make the right decisions.

• 

  101 Ways to Pick Stock Market Winners

  You need the number one bestselling investment guide, the definitive text for day traders, investors and stock pickers.

• 

  The Death of Wealth

  Dissecting the global economy and the financial markets, the book lays out the evidence for the next economic game changer: the Death of Wealth.

• 

  Lawrence Gash

• 

  Ramla Soni

• 

  Mark Austin

• 

  Anthony Wintle