Second day of solid gains as FTSE bumps up 1.8pct

At the end of today's trading the FTSE 100 moved up by a solid 99.17 points, reaching 5,314. The biggest contributors to today's performance was mining stocks, energy stocks as well as banks. Few stocks lost ground, Autonomy Corporation was the exception, sliding by 9 per cent.

Chris Bradshaw
shareprices.com - Thursday, July 22, 2010

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Firmer commodity prices buoyed mining and energy stocks. Kazakhmys, Kazakhmys and Cairn Energy gained between 5.15 and 4.3 per cent. Lonmin, Petrofac Ltd. and Eurasian Natural Resources also performed particularly well, all gaining between 4 and 3 per cent.

European banks will reveal the results of the much anticipated stress tests tomorrow but, with numerous leaks surfacing, investors factored in today an expectation of a good performance for Greece, Italy and Ireland and a few failures in Portugal and Spain.

As a result banking stocks maintained their momentum until close of trade. Barclays gained a solid 4.62 per cent, Standard Chartered moved up 4.13 per cent and Lloyds Banking Group moved up by 3.92 per cent. Investec and HSBC Holdings also showed a good performance.

BP managed to avoid moving into the red, closing up by 0.03 per cent. This after a request by the US Senate for testimony from BP chief Tony Hayward regarding the release of Lockerbie bomber Al-Megrahi.

Autonomy Corporation bucked the trend today. The company announced weaker than expected margins, worrying analysts that growth at the company may be slowing. Though turnover for the UK's largest software company climbed by 13 per cent profitability dropped sharply.

 

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