the times | Wednesday February 23 2022 2GM 47MarketsBusiness
Exchange rates
Bid Change
Australia $ 1.881
Canada $ 1.731
Denmark Kr 8.922 -0.01
Euro ¤ 1.199
Hong Kong $ 10.607 -0.01
Hungary 426.408 -1.46
Indonesia 19527.830 +31.71
Israel Shk 4.388 +0.01
Japan Yen 156.436 +0.17
New Zealand $ 2.016 -0.01
Norway Kr 12.072 -0.15
Poland 5.448 +0.01
Russia 107.829 +0.02
S Africa Rd 20.431 -0.10
Sweden Kr 12.669 -0.11
Switzerland Fr 1.253 +0.01
Turkey Lira 18.784 +0.20
USA $ 1.360
Rates supplied by MorningstarDollar rates
Australia 1.3845-1.3846
Canada 1.2746-1.2747
Denmark 6.5651-6.5656
Euro 0.8823-0.8825
Hong Kong 7.8016-7.8021
Japan 114.93-114.94
Malaysia 4.1830-4.1880
Norway 8.8831-8.8881
Singapore 1.3452-1.3455
Sweden 9.3405-9.3436
Switzerland 0.9203-0.9206Other Sterling
Argentina peso 145.66-145.66
Australia dollar 1.8817-1.8819
Bahrain dinar 0.5088-0.5160
Brazil real 6.8669-6.8723
Euro 1.1993-1.1994
Hong Kong dollar 10.603-10.604
India rupee 101.52-101.52
Indonesia rupiah 19562-19562
Kuwait dinar KD 0.4101-0.4125
Malaysia ringgit 5.6851-5.6919
New Zealand dollar 2.0143-2.0147
Singapore dollar 1.8284-1.8287
S Africa rand 20.489-20.501
U A E dirham 4.9914-4.9917Money rates %
Base Rates Clearing Banks 0.50 ECB Refi -0.50 US Fed Fd 0.00-0.25
Halifax Mortgage Rate 3.59Treasury Bills (Dis) Buy: 1 mth 0.367; 3 mth 0.670. Sell: 1 mth 0.330; 3 mth 0.5901 mth 2 mth 3 mth 6 mth 12 mth
Interbank Rates 0.5278 0.0000 0.8808 1.3314 0.0000
Eurodollar Deps 0.17-0.23 0.33-0.40 0.49-0.56 0.79-0.87 1.30-1.40Mkt Rates for Range Close 1 month 3 month
Copenhagen 8.8723-8.9517 8.9224-8.9237 80ds 305ds
Euro 1.2035-1.1931 1.1995-1.1990 7pr 28pr
Montreal 1.7233-1.7347 1.7324-1.7326 2ds 7ds
New York 1.3539-1.3603 1.3590-1.3592 2ds 7ds
Oslo 12.033-12.254 12.075-12.079 15pr 61pr
Stockholm 12.627-12.866 12.696-12.699 66ds 278ds
Tokyo 155.59-156.50 156.21-156.22 8ds 37ds
Zurich 1.2428-1.2533 1.2509-1.2510 13ds 48ds
Premium = pr Discount = dsSterling spot and forward rates
Gold/Precious
London Grain Futures metals (US dollars per ounce)
LIFFE Wheat (close £/t)
Mar 215.00 May 228.00 Jul unq
Nov 208.00 Jan unq Volume: 1544
London Metal Exchange
(Official)
Cash 3mth Dec 22
Copper Gde A ($/tonne)
10018.0-10020.0 9949.0-9951.0 9590.0-9600.0
Lead ($/tonne)
2334.5-2335.0 2324.5-2325.5 2222.0-2227.0
Zinc Spec Hi Gde ($/tonne)
3627.0-3628.0 3602.0-3603.0 3230.0-3235.0
Alum Hi Gde ($/tonne)
3419.0-3420.0 3366.0-3366.5 2983.0-2988.0
Nickel ($/tonne)
25645.0-25650.0 24850.0-24870.0 23360.0-23410.0
Tin ($/tonne) 15mth
44650.0-44700.0 44350.0-44400.0 43375.0-43425.0European money
deposits %
Currency
1mth 3mth 6mth 12mth
Dollar
0.13 0.20 0.29 0.55
Sterling
0.53 0.88 1.33 0.81
Euro
0.10 0.15 0.20 0.50Data as shown is
for information
purposes only. No offer is made by
Morningstar or this publicationBecause of a technical issue, the gold fix
prices are from Monday.
Bullion: Open $1909.59
Close $1903.58-1904.03
High $1913.64 Low $1891.75
AM $1895.45 PM $1894.45
Krugerrand $1884.00-1985.00 (£1386.11-
1460.42)
Platinum $1089.00 (£801.21)
Silver $24.29 (£17.87)
Palladium $2398.00 (£1764.27)C
ornish
Lithium has
struck a deal
with IGas
Energy and
the parent of
geothermal heat
developer GT Energy
UK to explore
commercially viable
geothermal heat
generation sites in
Cornwall.
Cornish Lithium has
created 3D models of
the sub-surface
geology and mineral
potential of the area
and has securedextensive land and
mineral rights
agreements in
southwest England.
A project to develop
shallow geothermal
projects in Cornwall
will be developed to
supply renewable heat
to industrial customers
and also investigate the
possibility of extracting
lithium from
geothermal waters.
Lithium is a crucial
ingredient in electric
vehicle batteries and
estimates suggest that
Britain will need
75,000 tonnes of
lithium carbonate each
year by 2035. Cornish
Lithium hopes to
produce 10,000 tonnes
a year from the
Trelavour project.Disappointing results from
McBride the maker of own-label
cleaning products, caused its shares to
tumble. The shares closed down at
46p, falling 2p, or 4.2 per cent, after
reporting a half-year adjusted
operating loss of £14.8 million
compared with £19 million profit in
the equivalent period the year before.
On London’s junior stock market,
Tungsten Corporation shares shot up
as the electronic invoicing company
said that Kofax had tabled a new and
improved offer for the business of
42p a shares. The sweetened proposal
caught investors’ eyes as the shares
jumped 2½p, or 7.1 per cent, closing up
at 36¼p.
Elsewhere, System1 Group settled
at its lowest since October as the
marketing and brand consultancy
sounded a profit warning. It expects
annual profit to be £1 million short of
the board’s previous expectations due
to a “sudden and unanticipated” fall
in US revenues. The shares fell 110p,
or 30.1 per cent, to close at 255p.TOM NICHOLSON FOR THE TIMESDowngrades leave a mark
on the water companies
Jessica Newman Market report
I
n times of market volatility, it is
hard to imagine why investors
would not want to pick up some
steady, reliable dividend paying
utilities companies.
But a bearish broker note from
Jefferies included plenty of reasons
not to do so, as there are a number of
risks water companies face that may
end up driving down their valuations.
Ahmed Farman, and his team of
analysts at Jefferies, said high levels of
pollution in UK rivers, a history of
sector fines and pollution being an
increasingly charged topic in the
public arena will pose “a sizeable
downside risk for the sector including
the three listed water companies”.
The analysts said the positive
impact of inflation is overestimated
and that rising real yields will causeUK utility shares to fall. They have
slashed their price targets across the
sector by 17 per cent, downgrading
Severn Trent and Pennon Group to
“underperform”. They also urged
clients to stop buying shares in United
Utilities, downgrading to a “hold”
recommendation.
The downgrades left Severn Trent
down 56p, or 2 per cent, at £27.79;
while Pennon Group lost 33p, or 3.1
per cent, to end the day at £10.30 and
United Utilities closed down 25½p, or
2.4 per cent, at £10.33.
On the wider market, investors
retreated on Tuesday morning after
Russia ordered troops into two
breakaway regions in eastern
Ukraine. But the declines were short
lived as London’s leading share index
closed the day higher by 9.88 points,
or 0.1 per cent, at 7,494.21, buoyed by
positive corporate updates. The FTSE
250, however, whose constituents
have a UK bias, closed down 103.86
points, or 0.5 per cent, to 20,993.33.
Joachim Klement, an investmentstrategist at Liberum, said: “In the
case of a highly publicised war with a
prolonged build-up like we have seen
in recent months with the Russia/
Ukraine conflict, the evidence clearly
speaks in favour of buying the dip.”
Moneysupermarket.com extended
its gains for a fourth straight session,
up 6p, or 3 per cent, to 207p following
last week’s annual results; while
Oxford Biomedica’s shares, which
have declined more than 40 per cent
since the start of this year, recovered
32p, or 4.6 per cent, to 731p.
Investment firms came under
pressure as they struggled to
overcome the negative read across
from Hargreaves Lansdown’s
disappointing half-year results, with a
20 per cent drop in pre-tax profits.
The update left its sector peers in the
red as AJ Bell closed down 14½p, or
4.5 per cent, at 305¼p and abrdn,
which has bought the do-it-yourself
investment platform Interactive
Investor in a £1.5 billion deal, lost
10¾p, or 4.6 per cent, to close at 223p.Inflation is traders’ biggest fear
financeS
urging inflation
and worries about
access to liquidity
are by far the chief
concerns among
traders, research by
JP Morgan shows.
Of the 718
questioned for the
American bank’s
annual FICC e-trading
survey, 48 per cent
said that rising
inflation posed the
biggest risk to stock
markets this year.
The survey, held in
November, revealed
that concerns about
the impact of the
global pandemic have
eased, with only 13 per
cent viewing it as the
greatest challenge.
About 35 per centbelieved that the
biggest daily trading
challenge was
liquidity availability,
as well as access to
market data and
costs.
“In a time when a
lot of our clients and
ourselves were allstepping back to a
more remote working
environment, we had
to harness technology
in a much more rapid
and thorough way
than we ever had
before,” Scott Wacker,
head of electronic
fixed income sales at
JP Morgan, said.
“As a result, some
could do it, some
could not. We saw
quite a bit of volatility
in terms of who was
there for the clients
and who wasn’t.”
Almost 30 per cent
predicted that
tracking apps on
phones would be the
most influential in the
future of trading in
the next 12 months.Wall Street report
After Monday’s holiday, indices fell
as America announced sanctions
against Russia over Ukraine — with
more to come. Oil rose sharply but
the Dow Jones industrial average
was down 482.57 points, or 1.4 per
cent, at 33,596.61.Company Change
Smith & Nephew Doubles full-year operating profit 7.5%
Evraz Rebound in confidence in steel maker after recent sell-off 5.4%
Oxford Biomedica Reverses some losses after Monday’s plunge 4.6%
InterContinental Hotels Group Positive full-year results 4.2%
Legal & General Bounces after recent shsare price weakness 3.4%
AJ Bell Soured sentiment across the sector -4.5%
Abrdn Negative read across investment platform sector -4.6%
Coca Cola Investors unimpressed with annual results -5.5%
Hargreaves Lansdown Half year profits drop by 20 per cent -15.6%
John Wood Group Annual results delayed due to $100 million one off charge -16.2%The day’s biggest movers
Cornish Lithium was
founded by Jeremy
Wrathall, a former
Investec banker. It
focuses on two forms
of lithium extraction:
conventional mining
from granite at
Trelavour near St
Austell; and using
experimental
technology to try to
extract lithium from
geothermal waters
near Redruth, where it
claims to have
discovered a “globally
significant” grade of
lithium.
Cornish Lithium
said: “This represents a
significant opportunity
to accelerate the
development of
geothermal heat
projects in Cornwall.”Energy firm
in quest for
Cornish heat
Mobile phone tracking
apps are predicted
to be a hit for trading