Amazon shares hit $1,000

Amazon shares hit the $1,000 mark earlier today for the first time, before falling back (its shares up 40% in the last year). Back in the UK after some earlier heavier selling British Airways-owner IAG saw its shares end Tuesday down -0.54% at 610.71p.

Earlier Goldman Sachs reiterated its Buy rating on the stock with a target price of 705p on the stock.

The euro crept nearer to the 1.1200 threshold buoyed by market hawkish ECB noises. Shortly after 4pm the euro-dollar pair was at 1.1179, around 0.13% up on the day while the pound was at $1.2859, up 0.16%.

• UK FTSE 100 7,526.51 -0.28%
• Dow 21,050.23 -0.14%
• S&P 500 2,413.68 -0.01%
• Nasdaq 6,210.19 +0.08%
• DAX 12,592.51 -0.29%
• CAC 40 5,297.13 -0.66%
• Gold 1,266.80 -0.36%
• Oil WTI 49.38 -0.82%

However much still depends on ECB president Mario Draghi. Yesterday Draghi continued to warn that a “fairly substantial amount of monetary accommodation” was still needed.

The ECB will update its position on 8 June following increasingly positive European economic forecasts and some optimism on the pace of inflation.

“Consumer and business sentiment has risen to a six-year high, supporting expectations of a further strengthening of growth in the coming months,” Draghi said yesterday. Yet wages are weak in many employment sectors right across the EU region.

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Despite tightened consumer belts Ryanair announced record profits this morning. Ryanair says net profits came in at €1.316bn. This figure was in line, more or less, with City expectations.

Ryanair said it was on track to increase net profits by 8% for the current year, upping seat capacity. However the Irish airline warned of more Brexit and security related risk – which is very difficult to forecast (though it also reiterated the robustness of its IT infrastructure, taking a pop at IAG).

“Investors,” said boss Michael O’Leary, “should be wary of the risk of negative Brexit developments, or any repeat of last year’s security events at European cities, which could damage consumer confidence, close-in bookings, and this full-year 2018 guidance.”

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The FTSE 100 gets its quarterly reshuffle shortly with Intu Properties and Hikma Pharmaceuticals likely to face demotion. However security services specialist G4S looks set to rejoin after it was kicked out of the Big Board in 2015.

G4S shares are on the comeback trail, almost 40% up year-to-date. Its shares were valued around the 232p mark at the start of January; they're currently valued at 326.63p.

Revenues from continuing business were 9% higher than last year for the second quarter, while there is also a pipeline of claimed new contract wins. Sirius Minerals appears meanwhile set to make the leap from AIM to the FTSE 250.

Breaking news: US house prices have climbed at their highest level since July 2014 according to the latest S&P/Case-Shiller US house price index. House prices have increased 5.4%.