U.K. stocks fell on Wednesday and the pound hit its highest level against the euro since February 2020, as a surge in inflation to 10-year highs fueled bets of an interest rate hike as early as next month.
Official data showed that U.K. consumer price inflation advanced to 4.2 percent in October from 3.1 percent in September. The rate was forecast to climb to 3.9 percent.
The upward pressure was largely driven by the surge in the cost of housing and transport.
On a monthly basis, consumer prices were up 1.1 percent versus September’s 0.3 percent rise and economists’ forecast of 0.8 percent.
The benchmark FTSE 100 dropped 23 points, or 0.3 percent, to 7,304 after declining 0.2 percent on Tuesday.
Software firm Sage Group climbed 2.8 percent. The company said it expects a continued strong performance in its cloud offering to drive revenue growth in the year ahead.
Energy stocks were moving lower, with Royal Dutch Shell losing more than 1 percent, after U.S. gasoline stocks fell more than expected last week, heightening pressure on the Biden administration to release oil from emergency reserves.
Renewable power generator and network operator SSE Plc lost almost 4 percent after reporting a 25 percent drop in renewable power output.
CMC Markets, a financial services company, plunged 5.5 percent after it posted a significant decline its pre-tax income for the first-half ended in September.
FTSE 100 Slips Into Red After Inflation Data
2021-11-17 09:41:23
