(Reuters) -British shares rebounded on Tuesday after touching a near three-week low in the previous session, while investors remained cautious ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s planned reveal of reciprocal tariffs on Wednesday.
Both the blue-chip FTSE 100 and the midcap FTSE 250 index gained 0.6%.
Trump is set to unveil reciprocal tariffs aligning U.S. duties with those of other nations at 4 pm ET on April 2. The levies will include all countries, Trump said on Sunday.
White House aides have drafted plans for tariffs of about 20% on most of the $3 trillion of goods imported annually to the U.S., the Washington Post reported.
However, UK business minister Jonathan Reynolds said Britain is still hopeful any tariffs imposed by Trump will be reversed shortly, if the two sides can agree on the outline of a new economic partnership.
Aerospace and defence stocks led sectoral gains, up 2.9%. Rolls Royce and BAE Systems were among the top gainers in the FTSE 100 index, up 4.1% and 1.7%, respectively.
Precious metal miners stocks were up 2.2%, supported by bullion’s record run to another all-time high on safe-haven demand.
Among individual stocks, drugmaker AstraZeneca rose 1% on positive results from a cholesterol reduction drug trial.
Greencore gained 5.6% after the convenience food manufacturer said it expects annual profit to be higher than current market expectations.
On the flip side, Sainsbury dropped 2%, after brokerage Exane BNP Paribas downgraded the stock to neutral from outperform.
Travis Perkins fell 10.2%, touching a 15-year low on the building materials supplier’s bleak outlook.
On the data front, a survey showed British manufacturers had a torrid March due to U.S. tariff threats and looming tax increases at home, contributing to a plunge in new orders.
Separately, UK house prices were flat in March and the market is likely to stay soft after a tax increase on property transactions, mortgage lender Nationwide said.
Meanwhile, grocery price inflation edged higher in March, industry data showed.
(Reporting by Ragini Mathur and Sanchayaita Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed and Chris Reese)
