Morning Briefing: UK election leads to hung parliament

UK election leads to hung parliament

Markets are reacting to British PM Theresa May’s election gamble which has backfired, leaving her with the largest party but without a majority.

The opposition Labour Party picked up seats while the Conservatives lost seats, although they did make a bad dent in the Scottish National Party’s stronghold north of the border, perhaps reducing the likelihood of an independence vote.

Mrs May will meet with the Queen this afternoon and will remain in charge to lead the Brexit negotiations which are due to start in 10 days. She will rely on support from the pro-Brexit DUP in Northern Ireland.

The pound slumped following the lack of a landslide victory for May, with London’s FTSE jumping. European indexes are trending higher with markets weighing a weaker position for the UK in Brexit negotiations.

Asian markets closed mostly higher with Hong Kong the main exception. Mixed Chinese data and weaker-than-expected Australian home loans were also in focus.

Wall Street and Toronto are expected to open higher. Canadian employment data is due.
 

	Latest	1 month ago	1 year ago
North America (previous session)
US Dow Jones	21,182.53 (+0.04 per cent)	+0.99 per cent	+17.78 per cent
TSX Composite	15,423.08 (+0.33 per cent)	-0.94 per cent	+8.31 per cent
Europe (at 5.00am ET)
UK FTSE	7,509.81 (+0.80 per cent)	+2.28 per cent	+20.51 per cent
German DAX	12,781.44 (+0.53 per cent)	+0.25 per cent	+26.69 per cent
Asia (at close)
China CSI 300	3,576.17 (+0.43 per cent)	+6.67 per cent	+13.03 per cent
Japan Nikkei	20,013.26 (+0.52 per cent)	+0.86 per cent	+20.07 per cent
Other Data (at 5.00am ET)
Oil (Brent)	Oil (WTI)	Gold	Can. Dollar
47.95 (+0.19 per cent)	45.75 (+0.24 per cent)	1276.40 (-0.24 per cent)	U$0.7402
			Aus. Dollar
			U$0.7535

Bombardier probe launched by World Bank

A contract to supply railway equipment to Azerbaijan by a consortium led by Bombardier, is being investigated by the World Bank.

The organization will look into whether bribery or corruption played a part, the Globe and Mail reports Friday; if it were to find wrongdoing, then Bombardier could be excluded from any other deals financed by the World Bank.

The U$340 million deal was agreed in 2013.