FTSE 100 Buoyant Despite Unexpected Fall in GDP

The principal financial news on Friday was an unexpected contraction of 0.4% in the U.K. economy for the third quarter.

Dominic Turner
shareprices.com - Monday, October 26, 2009

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

This caused Sterling to drop sharply, by 1.2% against both the euro and the dollar, to €1.0928 and $1.6241, respectively, but the FTSE 100 held onto early gains, thanks to strength in the banking and commodity sectors.

Share prices in Lloyds Banking Group for example, rose 2.4p to 97.2p on speculation that it would participate in the Asset Protection Scheme after all and therefore be required to find less cash from other sources. The other part-nationalised bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, also rose 1.2p to 46.7p. Insurance stocks were similarly strong, with Aviva up 9.5p at 438.6p and Prudential up 21.5p at 624p, doing best of all. Mining stocks also rose across the board, with Kazakhstan-based Kazakhyms leading the way up 40p at 1,292p, but with Vedanta Resources up 71p at 2,357p and Xstrata up 25p at 1,001p, all recording healthy gains.

BSkyB was also going well, up 18.5p or 3.2% at 578p, after it reported a net gain of 94,000 subscribers in the last three months and a 40% increase in quarterly pre-tax profits, up to £180 million from £129 million a year ago. The figures were at the high end of analysts' forecasts and BSkyB said that demand for HD ("High Definition") services by new subscribers had helped to offset the number of customers cancelling their subscriptions. There was good news for retail stocks too, with Next up 67p at 1,904p and Home Retail Group, which owns Argos, up 6.5p at 308.1p.

 

Latest News

Related News

FTSE 100 Latest

ValueChange
5,266.41136.87  % fall