Slight opening gain as FTSE 100 wakes up

The doom and gloom that has surrounded the British Pound's seemingly endless fall from glory to almost parity with the US Dollar in its lowest point in recorded history has been a major consideration for traders across the world.

A clear indicator of the dire straits that the British economy finds itself in after many years of policy which has blown the coffers to an extent that there are serious concerns about how many people will manage to get through the winter, the Pound still languishes, but the FTSE 100 index has begun to increase just a few ticks this morning.

As the opening bell sounded in London this morning, analysts and traders began their day with a degree of optimism, expecting the London Stock Exchange's index containing its 100 most prestigious publicly listed companies to begin the day a few points higher than yesterday.

This mood was created by the Pound's slight slowdown in its apparent freefall, and news from the British government that the Treasury will hold a full Budget in the spring of 2023 and the Bank of England confirmed that it is keeping watch on markets and would not hesitate to raise rates.

The impending rate rises are a cause for concern, however, as a potential increase from the current rate of around 2.25% to over 5% by January is being speculated upon, and if that happens, it could well cause a serious issue for borrowers and plunge the economy into a recession.

In line with expectations, The FTSE 100 rose over 27 points in the opening session this morning in London, arriving at 7048.65, a gain of 0.4%. It extended a marginal overall rise notched up by the end of the previous session partially as a result of the news from the UK treasury.

Caution is still abound, however, especially as some mortgage lenders have removed some of the deals available in anticipation of increasing interest rates, giving rise to a possible notion that they are afraid of possible defaults should the rates go to over 5% as is being mooted by some analysts and investment banks.

This morning's upward movers on the FTSE 100 index were mainly some of the raw materials and resource stocks. Anglo American was up 50p to 2647p and Rio Tinto gained 69p to 4767p.

Given the anticipation that interest rates will rise to much higher levels than current ones, it is perhaps to be expected that the fallers on the FTSE 100 index today are house building companies. Persimmon stock dropped by 6p per share to 1258p, and Barratt stock fell 2.2p to 383p,

Rightmove, which is an online portal for real estate agencies to list their properties for rent or sale, saw its stock fall 4.4p to 545p per share.

In congruence with this, some of the major retail banks, NatWest and Lloyds notably, experienced falling share prices.

It's been a raw materials dominated world this year, and today's figures are no different.

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