London open: FTSE nudges lower; Microsoft outage in focus

(Sharecast News) - London stocks nudged lower in early trade on Friday as investors continued to mull the implications of the Nvidia scandal, and as Microsoft was hit by a global outage.

At 0855 GMT, the FTSE 100 was down 0.1% at 10,851.43.

Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote, said: "The biggest news yesterday was Jensen Huang's resignation from Nvidia and Colette Kress's appointment as interim CEO. Nvidia fell as much as 14% before paring its losses to end the session down around 4.3%, as dip buyers stepped in, trying to figure out what comes next for Nvidia without Jensen Huang, and for the broader AI industry without the man in the leather jacket.

"Let's start with Colette Kress, the new interim CEO. She has been the company's CFO since 2013. She knows the business, its customers and its finances, and helped oversee Nvidia's extraordinary expansion.

"No one knows exactly how Nvidia will manage the complex web of investments and business relationships built under Jensen Huang. But the base case is that Kress's immediate task will be to reassure investors that Nvidia can stay on the trajectory Huang set and deliver without him at the helm. And yes, a company of Nvidia's scale - worth around $4 trillion - had better be able to function without one person, no matter how brilliant that person is. To me, this is an opportunity for Nvidia to shift the focus from a one-man show to the company and its products.

"In the near term, there are risks that need to be priced correctly, meaning we could see further downside as more news emerges. On Thursday, Reuters reported that Huang had a relationship with a second Nvidia employee, bringing the total number of reported affairs to three. With Huang's departure, further revelations about personal relationships may have less impact on the share price, although any governance implications would still matter. The allegations involving external business relationships could have far-reaching consequences for the company and the broader AI complex."

The big news overnight was a global Microsoft outage, which began around 1800 GMT on Thursday. Users are currently unable to send or receive emails through Outlook, with Teams, AI-assistant Copilot and other Microsoft 365 services also affected.

Microsoft said it was working on a fix. In its latest update on Friday morning, the US tech giant said it was "seeing positive results" for service stability and increased capacity, and that it would "continue to monitor its progress and are working to expand it to servers supporting active regions coming online". It had previously acknowledged that the fix was "not going as expected".

There was no immediate explanation for the outage. However, Microsoft's executive vice president of Copilot, agents and platform, Charles Lamanna, posted overnight on X that there was "no indication this is the result of a malicious or cyber activity".

In equity markets, BP and Shell were among the top performers on the FTSE 100 as oil prices remained elevated, with Brent crude 0.6% higher at $96.37 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate up 0.4% at $89.12.

Aviva surged after saying it expects earnings per share to grow broadly in line with its 11% target this year after general insurance premiums rose 19% to almost £12bn in the first nine months of the year driven by Direct Line and the new home insurance partnership with Nationwide.

Land Securities gained as it reiterated full-year guidance after interim rental income rose by more than expected.

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 10,851.43 -0.11%

FTSE 250 (MCX) 24,823.88 -0.37%

techMARK (TASX) 6,206.55 -0.66%

FTSE 100 - Risers

Aviva (AV.) 754.80p 2.00%

BP (BP.) 574.70p 1.20%

Shell (SHEL) 3,713.00p 1.13%

Ithaca Energy (ITH) 260.40p 0.93%

Associated British Foods (ABF) 2,023.00p 0.90%

Centrica (CNA) 155.65p 0.65%

Convatec Group (CTEC) 257.00p 0.63%

Legal & General Group (LGEN) 315.40p 0.61%

Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 348.90p 0.61%

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) 179.85p 0.47%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

3i Group (III) 2,639.00p -2.62%

Vodafone Group (VOD) 115.70p -2.08%

Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 1,342.40p -2.02%

Antofagasta (ANTO) 3,156.00p -1.93%

Weir (WEIR) 2,346.00p -1.76%

Anglo American (AAL) 3,771.00p -1.52%

Melrose Industries (MRO) 483.40p -1.14%

Fresnillo (FRES) 2,420.00p -1.10%

Pershing Square Holdings Ltd NPV (PSH) 3,944.00p -1.10%

Babcock International Group (BAB) 975.20p -1.05%

FTSE 250 - Risers

ASOS (ASC) 472.00p 2.38%

Diversified Energy Company (DI) (DEC) 1,048.00p 1.35%

Lancashire Holdings Limited (LRE) 653.50p 1.08%

Michael Page (PAGE) 212.40p 1.04%

Oakley Capital Investments Limited (DI) (OCI) 537.00p 0.94%

B&M European Value Retail (BME) 339.60p 0.83%

PPHE Hotel Group Ltd (PPH) 1,570.00p 0.77%

Man Group (EMG) 316.80p 0.76%

Patria Private Equity Trust (PPET) 610.00p 0.66%

AO World (AO.) 92.30p 0.65%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

WH Smith (SMWH) 376.60p -5.92%

QinetiQ Group (QQ.) 474.60p -4.36%

Wizz Air Holdings (WIZZ) 1,084.00p -3.98%

Dr. Martens (DOCS) 53.10p -2.96%

Oxford Biomedica (OXB) 521.00p -2.43%

Vistry Group (VTY) 242.40p -2.40%

JPMorgan Emerging Markets Growth & Income (JMGI) 152.20p -2.31%

Volex (VLX) 514.00p -2.28%

Chemring Group (CHG) 497.60p -2.12%

Schroder Asian Total Return Investment Company (ATR) 624.00p -2.04%