Seeing red

The London index is being pulled down by oil stocks and travel operator TUI with moves slightly exaggerated as trading floors are quieter than usual because of the summer holidays. Most European indices are also trading in negative territory with the exception of the DAX, which is struggling around the flat line.

The pound is flirting with recent lows and is trading at 1.2858 against the dollar and 1.1094 against the euro.

On the red note, the US said on Wednesday it will bring in new sanctions against Russia by the end of this month because of the nerve-agent attack against a former Russian spy Sergei Skripal. The move, however, will also hurt US companies which export millions of dollars’ worth of technology like turbines and calibration equipment to Russia.

Travel sector experiencing its own, not very pleasant, heat wave

Ryanair continues to be embroiled in a long running dispute with its pilots over wages and is facing industrial action on Friday, one of the busiest days in the summer travel season, now that the company’s German pilots have said they will join their peers from Ireland, Belgium and Sweden for a walkout. The Irish budget airline was due to run 2,400 flights on Friday to take passengers to their summer holiday destinations but said this morning it has cancelled 250 flights for the day.

Anglo-German travel operator TUI is also having a bad day. The company’s shares plunged nearly 9% after it said that it made a net loss in the third quarter of this financial year of €110.5 million. Although the company said that it is sticking to its guidance of double digit growth this year the market seemed highly unconvinced and bid the stock lower.

Copper rallies, helps miners

Chilean miner Antofagasta is topping the list of FTSE risers helped by the fact that copper is one of a few commodities not trading in the red this morning. Instead the red metal is up 0.87% and Antofagasta is trading 1.21% higher. Metals trader Glencore, which last week said that it increased its production of copper in the Democratic Republic of Congo by 31%, is also trading up 0.7%.