UK - Market Report: FTSE up after public sector borrowing came in below forecasts and Bitcoin claws back: Proactive

 

25 May 2021

Proactive

41.4K subscribers

 

FTSE 100 made a cagey start on Tuesday although public sector borrowing came in well below forecasts. London’s leading index was flat at 7,051 in early deals. xxx Bitcoin stayed stuck in the doldrums even though Elon Musk tweeted that he’d spoken with North American miners, who “committed to publish current & planned renewable usage”. The Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) boss previously criticised the cryptocurrency’s environmental impact

 

UK supermarket sales fell by 0.4% in the last three months as lockdown eased and people resumed eating out. Figures were still £3.8bn higher than the same period in 2019, according to Kantar. 

 

 West End property owner Shaftesbury PLC (LON:SHB) reported an encouraging increase in demand for lettings since shops started to reopen last month. However, interim losses swelled due to a £342mln property value writedown.

 

Bango PLC (LON:BGO) said the first three telecoms companies offering bundled Xbox cloud gaming subscriptions in Europe are using its payments platform. Microsoft, which makes the Xbox, is using the Bango e-commerce platform to enable telecoms company partners to bundle Xbox Game Pass Ultimate as subscription packages. 

 

Franchise Brands’ (LON:FRAN) plumbing arms Metro Rod and Metro Plumb are seeing unprecedented levels of demand for their services following the easing of lockdown restrictions. The pair have 9,300 jobs on their books, topping the previous record reached in the run-up to Christmas 2019.

 

Shanta Gold Ltd (LON:SHG) has identified visible signs of the precious metal in seven different intersections as part of an 11-hole drilling programme on the West Kenya project. The AIM-quoted company is drilling at the Isulu deposit.