The FTSE 100 index in Britain is expected to open higher on Monday, with early futures showing a gain of 0.84%. The DAX index was also trading higher, up around 0.5% at the time of writing.
In company news: Diageo, the world’s largest spirits company, appointed Dave Lewis (the former head of Tesco) as its new CEO, concluding a long search and bringing in an outsider to lead the company during tough times for the drinks business.
Separately, the mining company Ferrexpo announced that its production and exports have been stopped because recent Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy system damaged the power supply to the miner’s operations in a critical area.
Also, the owner of Upper Crust, SSP Group, said that its Chair and director, Mike Clasper, plans to step down after the company’s annual meeting in January 2026.
Finally, JTC announced it has accepted the fourth improved offer from the British private equity firm Permira, valuing the company at £2.3 billion (or $3.09 billion).
On the FX front, the value of the US dollar went down on Monday. This happened because investors felt more hopeful after the Senate took steps to potentially reopen the federal government, which overshadowed some recent bad economic news.
The US dollar index dropped slightly, by 0.1%, to 99.643.
Other currencies reacted slightly to this: the euro was a little weaker at 1.1559, and the British pound sterling was also slightly softer at 1.3148.
The offshore Chinese yuan stayed mostly the same against the dollar at 7.1204 during Asian trading.
Meanwhile, the currencies of Australia and New Zealand gained ground: the Australian dollar was up 0.4% at 0.6520, and the New Zealand dollar (kiwi) rose 0.1% to 0.5632.
Currency Power Balance
