The latest from London: The FTSE 100 heads for a second day of gains in 2022

UK markets keep rising at the start of the year as fears of Omicron disruption eased. Leisure and travel stocks are the biggest gainers, partly due to comments from epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, which said the spread of Omicron among adults may have plateaued in London. In addition, Germany eased travel restrictions for the UK and South Africa.

British Airways parent company IAG gained 11%, while Wizz Air rose 12%. This morning, the FTSE 100 was up 0.2% following mixed trading in Asia and on Wall Street on higher U.S. Treasury yields.

Investors will be looking at the Fed minutes at 7pm to get more clues on the central bank’s monetary policy.

Meanwhile, the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority said today that it has served an initial enforcement order on the planned acquisition of Capita PLC's Secure Solutions and Services businesses by NEC Software Solutions.

 

Things to read today:

China’s Covid Policy will be wild card for markets in 2022 (Financial Times)

Stocks Slip as Tech Drops, Fed Outlook Mulled. (Bloomberg)

A growing network of undersea cables connects Britain to green energy  (Financial Times)