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FTSE ends the day modestly higher as blue chips rally
Friday, 20th April 2012
END-OF-DAY REPORT: Headline shares ended the day modestly higher, with financial issues and the heavyweight miners recovering from a muted start to the session, with a strong start on Wall Street helping. At the close of business, the FTSE100 was up 27.6 points at 5,772.15 with the FTSE250 ahead 21.85 points at 11,444.85 and the FTSE Smallcaps little changed at 3,119.48.
NEW YORK
US stocks were firmly higher in late morning trade as better-than-expected first quarter numbers from the likes of GE, Microsoft and Schlumberger lifted spirits.
Heading into the close in London, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 101 points at 13,065, the S&P500 gained 8 points at 1,385 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 20 points at 3,028.
LONDON MARKETS
Trading was cautious today ahead of a weekend that includes meetings of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and G20.
After a muted start to the day, mining stocks were driven higher by Vedanta Resources, up 37p at 1,237p, with Kazakhmys up 21p at 889.5p and Anglo American ahead 42p at 2,349p.
Lloyds led the banks higher, adding 0.81p at 30.1p, helped by a buy recommendation from Investec, while Barclays gained 1.25p at 213.55p and Royal Bank of Scotland edged ahead 0.18p at 24.02p.
Hedge fund manager Man Group rallied 2.3p at 95.7p after recent losses based on its flagship AHL fund's underperformance, helped by Credit Suisse maintaining its outperform stance on the stock.
Elsewhere, Hargreaves Lansdown rose 13p at 521.5p as investors re-visited yesterday's Q3 update and Schroders added 13p at 1,459p.
Food ingredients group Tate & Lyle rose 3p at 688p on announcing it has reached agreement to sell its 50% share in Colombian JV Sucromiles for a total cash consideration of £19.6m).
Satellite operator Inmarsat gained 18.7p at 440.4p on news it has finally settled its long-running dispute with US wireless broadband company LightSquared.
International engineering group IMI rose 18p at 992p, when it said it has had a positive start to 2012 with Group revenues in the three months to end-March up 8% on a reported basis.
International Airlines Group (IAG) ticked up 1.76p at 171.8p on reporting it has completed the purchase of bmi from Lufthansa.
John Wood Group gained 26.5p at 749.5p when Morgan Stanley upgraded the oil industry service group from equal-weight to overweight and hiked its target price from 875p to 950p.
On the downside with blue chips, news that Moscow has ordered that charges be brought against TNK-BP over oil spill damages pushed shares in BP 5.2p lower at 434.85p.
However, chip designer ARM Holdings was the worst performing blue chip of the day, down 22.5p at 585p ahead of its Q1 trading update next week.
Other notable casualties included household goods maker Reckitt Benckiser, off 40p at 3,620p, industrial pump maker Weir Group, down 52p at 1,700p, and plumbing giant Wolseley, 29p lower at 2,382p.
Story provided by StockMarketWire.com
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