FTSE Closes at Highest Level for a Week

London equities made a bright start to the week, with the FTSE 100 index closing up 53.77 points at 5,315.34, its highest closing level for a week. The decision by Abu Dhabi to supply neighbour Dubai with $10 billion in aid, reassured investors that state-owned companies Nakheel and Dubai World would not expose banks to huge losses from bad debt and banks shares were in demand as a result.

Dominic Turner
shareprices.com - Tuesday, December 15, 2009

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Standard Chartered

Standard Chartered benefited from an upgrade from Credit Suisse and a bullish trading update last week, with its share price rising 4.3%. Barclays, HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland were also up by between 1.3% and 2.4%, but Lloyds Banking Group was down 1.9% after it completed its record £13.5 billion rights issue. In fact, Lloyds Banking Group was one of the biggest losers of the day and was responsible for almost half of the turnover of shares in the FTSE 100.

Whitbread shares rose 3.4% to 1,375p, after the leisure group reported strong trading from its Costa Coffee franchise. In contrast to its troubled rivals, Coffee Republic and Starbucks, Costa saw an increase of 6.7% – double the increase in the first six months of the year – in like-for-like sales in the four months to the end of November.

Beleaguered airline British Airways (BA) was down just 0.3p or 0.15%, at 201p, despite the announcement of strike action by the Unite union. BA cabin crew voted to strike for 12 successive days, starting on 22nd December, leaving a million people facing travel chaos.

 

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