FTSE 100 Back in Positive Territory

London equities crept higher during early trading on Wednesday as strength in the mining and energy sectors, buoyed by higher metal and crude oil prices, helped to offset weakness in the banking sector ahead of the Queen's Speech.

Dominic Turner
shareprices.com - Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Printable version email to a friend Subscribe to shareprices.com newsfeed

Heavyweight oil majors Royal Dutch Shell, up 0.8% at 1,831p and BP, up 0.7% at 591.7p were in demand as crude oil prices rose to nearly $80 a barrel. In the mining sector, a falling dollar strengthened metal prices and lifted Anglo American, Eurasian Natural Resources, Fresnillo and Rio Tinto by between 1.3% and 2.6%, while UBS upgraded Vedanta Resources to "buy" from "neutral" and raised its target price, lifting the stock 1.8%. Overall, the FTSE 100 was up 18 points, or 0.3%, at 5,364.05, after closing down 36.74 points on Tuesday, its first loss in five trading days.

Elsewhere, ITV confirmed that former Conservative MP and Asda chief executive, Archie Norman, would become its new non-executive chairman in January, when current executive chairman Michael Grade steps down. Investors were cheered by the news and ITV's share price rose 2.4% to 53.2p.

Not such good news for Wolseley however, with the plumbers' merchant reporting a 45% fall in first quarter profit, down to £76 million and a 13% fall in revenue, down to £3,395 million, in the same period. The company is of course, highly exposed to the housing market and said that trading conditions remained extremely tough; its share price fell 33p, or 2.4%, to 1,340p.

 

Latest News

Related News

FTSE 100 Latest

ValueChange
5,875.9314.33  % fall