Rising bond yields drag FTSE 100 lower; Deliveroo slumps in debut

Topps Tiles fell 1.4% after reporting lower half-year sales, but the tile retailer said it expects sales to rise "sharply" and margins to recover to normal levels as the current lockdown in the United Kingdom gradually eases by the middle of April. Shares in Deliveroo opened well below the price of their initial public offering on Wednesday, and fell as much as 30% to 275 pence after making one of the most anticipated London stock market listings.


Reuters | Updated: 31-03-2021 14:12 IST | Created: 31-03-2021 14:12 IST
Rising bond yields drag FTSE 100 lower; Deliveroo slumps in debut

London's FTSE 100 fell on Wednesday, as firmer Treasury yields weighed on several sectors, while food delivery company Deliveroo slumped 30% on its first day of trading.

The blue-chip FTSE 100 index slipped 0.3%, with Oil heavyweights BP and Royal Dutch Shell falling between 0.7% and 1.1%. Bank stocks, including HSBC Holdings, Prudential Financial and Barclays, were also among the biggest laggards.

"Rising yields clearly have been an enormous issue, not so much in the performance of the headline indices but certainly in the underlying sectors and stock performances within those indices," said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell. "It does raise questions over long-duration assets like tech, biotech, and it's interesting to see that Deliveroo is finding a bit of indigestion in markets this morning."

The FTSE 100 has rebounded more than 38% from a coronavirus-driven crash last year, but it has struggled to reach pre-pandemic highs on increasing worries about inflation and the economic impact of lockdowns. Britain's coronavirus-hammered economy, meanwhile, grew more quickly than previously thought in the final three months of last year, but still shrank by the most in more than three centuries in 2020 as a whole, official data showed.

The domestically focused mid-cap FTSE 250 index was up 0.1%, led by financial stocks. Topps Tiles fell 1.4% after reporting lower half-year sales, but the tile retailer said it expects sales to rise "sharply" and margins to recover to normal levels as the current lockdown in the United Kingdom gradually eases by the middle of April.

Shares in Deliveroo opened well below the price of their initial public offering on Wednesday, and fell as much as 30% to 275 pence after making one of the most anticipated London stock market listings.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Give Feedback