Headline shares made modest early gains, recouping some of yesterday's losses, as an element of bargain hunting gave a boost, with financials back in favour, offsetting weakness amongst miners. At 8:30am, the FTSE100 was up 28.83 points at 5,186.91 with the FTSE250 ahead 30.34 points at 9,700.96 and the FTSE Smallcaps little changed at 2,804.61. In the US last night, the Dow lost 67 points at 10,444, the Nasdaq Composite fell 19 points at 2,298 and the S&P500 shed 6 points at 1,115. In Asia today, the Nikkei was closed down 156.53 points at 10,030.31, while the Hang Seng was recently off 41.64 points at 19,537.34.
LONDON MARKETS
The latest UK Retail Sales reading is due for release at 9:30am. A little confidence crept back into equity markets in London this morning as investors turned to bargain hunting after the previous session's heavy falls.
Commercial property companies were popular, helped by news from midcap Great Portland of a return to profit for the first time in three years. British Land added 8p at 453.5p and Land Securities Group Plc (LON:LAND) gained 5.5p at 615.5p, while Great Portland rose 5.3p at 303.3p.
In the financial world, banks returned to winning ways, with Barclays (LON:BARC) the best of them, ahead 6.65p at 296.85p. Lloyds rose 1.15p at 57.47p and Royal Bank Of Scotland Group Plc (LON:RBS) improved 0.89p at 46.09p. South Africa based bank and asset manager Investec rose 3.2p at 430.3p after reporting that third party assets under management jumped 50.7% to £73.6bn in the year to end-March, while earnings surged 15% to £309.7m.
Insurers were in demand, with Aviva (LON:AV.) the standout winner, up 7.3p at 315.8p and Prudential (LON:PRU) ticking up 6p at 524p. Fund managers also rallied as the panic over regulation subsided, with Man Group (LON:EMG) rallying 2.1p at 217.4p and Schroders (LON:SDR) up 5p at 1,344p.
Oil producers rose as crude ticked back over £70 a barrel, with BP (LON:BP.) also helped by reports it is close to sealing the leakage in the Gulf of Mexico. BP (LON:BP.) shares added 8.8p at 532.3p, while Shell jumped 28.5p at 1,789p.
Mobile phone giant Vodafone Group (LON:VOD) topped the leaderboard early on, up 3.35p at 134.35p.
On the downside with blue chips, mining shares were generally lower as…
I wonder if we can break 5000 on the ftse....I am quite keen to see 4000 again..It will allow me to load up on some of the best companies in the world....Sadly Soco will fall with the markets if that happens.
At least the management will prove up most of the assets in the next 4-6 months and hopefully will look to sell out. A market crash would be a bonus as I would be able to pick up cheap shares....but Soco would be sold at a less price then some would expect!
Mind you BG group is starting to look interesting... :-)
