Shares in oil producers are falling this morning, pulling the UK’s blue-chip share index down from Thursday’s five-month high.
BP (-3%), Harbour Energy (-2.6%) and Shell (-2%) are the top FTSE 100 fallers, knocking the ‘Footsie’ down by 0.5% or 37 points to 7521 points.
European markets are also a little lower, ahead of the US non-farm payroll due at 1.30pm UK time.
Neil Wilson of Markets.com says: “European stocks opened lower on Friday, looking to close the week out barely changed but with US jobs data on tap later likely to drive some volatility. The FTSE 100 dropped around half a percent in early trade, holding above 7,500, the DAX off a similar margin but above 14,400.
US nonfarm payrolls are due up later. Forecast is for +200k jobs, slowing from +261K last month. Wage growth is seen at +0.3% and unemployment rate steady at 3.7%. I don’t think the pace of jobs growth will matter too much for the Fed’s December meeting, but it will offer the usual volatility.
“Weaker-than-expected can be seen near-term positive for risk…but I think as we head into 2023 it will be clear that bad news is no longer good news for stocks.
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