FTSE higher as PM wins first key vote on Brexit

In an historical night of voting, Parliament for the first time agreed to back Boris Johnson's Brexit proposal agreed with the EU last week, but in the next breath voted against the PM's timetable, effectively making sure that Brexit doesn't happen by the end of this month. The vote left the next decision in Europe's court and Europe responded in the best Donald Trump fashion – with a tweet – as European Council President Donald Tusk tweeted he would recommend to back a delay in order to avoid a chaotic no-deal Brexit. London shares with greater UK exposure were sliding this morning, but this was balanced out by hikes in overall share prices, driven by the newly spun off M&G Plc, previously the investment arm of Prudential, and Russian steel maker Evraz. Rio Tinto also rallied after saying that it found a massive lithium deposit, the metal used for electric car batteries, while looking for gold. The news overshadowed the fact that the company's massive copper expansion programme in Mongolia is now running far behind schedule with costs likely to come in at double the original estimate.

Pound slips post Brexit vote

All the parliamentary activity left the currency market confused, and the pound initially dropped to $1.2842 before beginning to recover. The pound/euro cross followed a similar pattern with sterling trading down 10 pips this morning.

Oil trades sideways

The oil market is seeing some sideways action with traders trying to push the commodity above the $60 level to trigger some stop loss buying, but Brent crude keeps reverting to the $59-$60 range. As the next OPEC meeting in Vienna comes closer investors will look for comments ahead of the gathering to indicate if OPEC is still happy with the current price range or will intensify production cuts.

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