London open: Stocks nudge up in quiet trade; M&B surges

(Sharecast News) - London stocks nudged higher in early trade on Friday at the start of what was likely to be a quiet session, with US markets set to close early for the Thanksgiving holiday. At 0830 GMT, the FTSE 100 was up 0.1% at 9,704.31, as investors continued to weigh the impact of Wednesday's Budget.

Derren Nathan, head of equity research at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The FTSE opened up around 0.25% this morning, taking it about 2% higher than when the week started, with the Chancellor delivering what was widely seen as a fiscally responsible Budget.

"Gilt yields remain below where they were on Monday, a sign of growing trust by those who lend to the Treasury. The market's now pricing in a 94% chance of a quarter-point cut by the Bank of England next month."

Nathan noted that "Black Friday is upon us". He said PwC is forecasting a 1.5% increase in spending to £6.4bn.

"Under the bonnet, less people are expected to be drawn into the promotional frenzy but those that do are set to spend 13% more," he said. "Encouragingly for retailers, only a minority of those shunning the shops are doing so for financial reasons, with just 7% citing the Budget as a deciding factor when polled ahead of the speech."

Investors were mulling the latest data from Zoopla, which showed that house prices across southern England edged lower in the four weeks to 23 November for the first time in 18 months in the run-up to the Budget.

Zoopla said market activity has cooled slightly since the summer as budget speculation encouraged many to "pause and reassess".

Prices in London dipped 0.1% on the year to £530,000.

Momentum remains strong elsewhere, it said, with prices rising as much as 3% in the North West and by 2-3% across northern England, Scotland and Wales amid steady demand.

Zoopla said speculation about potential new taxes on homes over £500,000 had a greater impact in the south, where more than a third of properties for sale fall into this bracket.

"This, combined with wider market trends, has nudged prices lower and expanded choice for buyers," it said. "The number of homes for sale in southern regions is now 8 to 15% higher than a year ago, helping to create a clear buyers' market. Although buying costs increased after the end of stamp duty reliefs in April 2025, mortgage rates have largely held steady."

Across the UK, house prices rose 1.3% on an annual basis to an average of £270,200.

Zoopla said: "After a long lead-in, the Budget bark was worse than its bite for the housing market. Homebuyers and sellers will welcome the end of the uncertainty that stalled housing market activity since the late summer.

"Our data shows the underlying demand to move home remains strong. With greater certainty, we expect a rebound in housing market activity that builds into the new year, with households who paused home moving decisions over recent months return with greater confidence.

"We expect the variance in price inflation between the South and the rest of the country to remain, and income growth is key to helping reset housing affordability and unlocking more home moves."

Elsewhere, the Lloyds business barometer for November showed that business confidence fell by eight points to 42%, with sentiment likely dented by uncertainty ahead of the Budget.

In equity markets, easyJet flew higher after an upgrade to 'buy' from 'neutral' at Bernstein, while Weir Group and IMI both rallied after BNPP Exane reinstated coverage of the stocks at 'outperform'.

Mitchells & Butlers surged as it posted better-than-expected annual profits despite rising cost pressures, adding that like-for-like sales in the last two months had risen by 3.8% despite uncertainty ahead of the UK government's Budget.

The upbeat performance came as the company reported a jump in full-year pre-tax profits to £238m from £199m. Group LFL sales in the year to 27 September rose 4.3%.

On an adjusted basis, pre-tax profit came in at £246m, up from £211m a year earlier and beating expectations of £237.5m.

On the downside, Premier Inn owner Whitbread tumbled after Bernstein slashed its price target on the shares.

Luxury fashion brand Burberry was knocked lower by a downgrade to 'underweight' at JPMorgan.

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 9,704.31 0.11% FTSE 250 (MCX) 22,103.42 0.05% techMARK (TASX) 5,576.74 0.22%

FTSE 100 - Risers

easyJet (EZJ) 494.40p 1.94% Weir Group (WEIR) 2,796.00p 1.75% IMI (IMI) 2,426.00p 1.25% Fresnillo (FRES) 2,616.00p 1.24% Kingfisher (KGF) 310.60p 1.14% Shell (SHEL) 2,774.00p 0.76% Antofagasta (ANTO) 2,710.00p 0.74% Smiths Group (SMIN) 2,456.00p 0.74% Pershing Square Holdings Ltd NPV (PSH) 4,900.00p 0.70% Rio Tinto (RIO) 5,390.00p 0.65%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Whitbread (WTB) 2,612.00p -7.11% Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,147.50p -2.22% Games Workshop Group (GAW) 19,180.00p -1.84% Halma (HLMA) 3,536.00p -0.95% Babcock International Group (BAB) 1,135.00p -0.87% Diageo (DGE) 1,730.50p -0.66% Relx plc (REL) 3,015.00p -0.66% Reckitt Benckiser Group (RKT) 5,842.00p -0.54% Intertek Group (ITRK) 4,610.00p -0.52% Auto Trader Group (AUTO) 639.60p -0.50%

FTSE 250 - Risers

Mitchells & Butlers (MAB) 277.00p 8.20% Senior (SNR) 189.80p 5.21% Hochschild Mining (HOC) 392.00p 3.00% THG (THG) 45.32p 2.21% PayPoint (PAY) 487.00p 2.20% Ceres Power Holdings (CWR) 356.80p 1.88% Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) 141.30p 1.73% Playtech (PTEC) 283.00p 1.62% Johnson Matthey (JMAT) 1,971.00p 1.39% Raspberry PI Holdings (RPI) 336.60p 1.32%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

Hays (HAS) 56.10p -2.18% Vesuvius (VSVS) 379.20p -1.66% Domino's Pizza Group (DOM) 173.70p -1.36% Ninety One (N91) 215.00p -1.29% The Renewables Infrastructure Group Limited (TRIG) 73.70p -1.21% Investec (INVP) 542.50p -1.09% Pennon Group (PNN) 546.00p -1.09% Partners Group Private Equity Limited. (EUR) (PEY) 10.10p -0.98% Baltic Classifieds Group (BCG) 235.00p -0.84% Computacenter (CCC) 2,940.00p -0.81%