After a poor morning performance, the FTSE 100 rallied on Monday afternoon to start the week with a bang.
London’s top index jumped by 88.61 points, a 1.3% rise that leaves the index at 6,719.13, its highest since mid-February. It had traded down by around 0.2% earlier in the morning.
However, the FTSE lagged behind its European peers, as Germany’s top companies which make up the Dax gained 3.4%, and France’s Cac index added 2.1%.
Banks including HSBC, Barclays and Lloyds joined the index’s biggest winners, while supermarkets dropped, including Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s.
“The FTSE 100 has also had a good day, hitting a one-week high, though it has lagged behind its European counterparts, with the likes of traditional utilities underperforming, along with a weaker oil price which has pulled the likes of BP and Royal Dutch Shell into negative territory,” said CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson.
The price of Brent crude oil dropped 1.4% to $68.39 per barrel.
London’s performance put it more on par with its cousins across the pond, as the Dow Jones had added 1.4% and the S&P 500 0.7% shortly after markets closed in Europe. It was pressured lower by the London Stock Exchange Group, which ended the day down by 7.4% after analysts raised concerns.
“London Stock Exchange has also continued to experience a post-results hangover, falling again after last week’s sharp move lower, on scepticism over its cost-savings plans with respect to its Refinitiv acquisition,” Mr Hewson said.
Sterling was practically flat against the dollar, ending the day at 1.3816, while the currency rose 0.6% to buy 1.166 euros.
Morrisons was among the losers on the day, down 2.2% alongside its other supermarket peers. The company on Monday promised that the farms where it sources meat, eggs, fruit and vegetables would have net zero emissions by 2030. It would mean the farms have no overall impact on climate change. Aston Martin also revealed green moves, telling the Financial Times that it would manufacture electric SUVs in the UK from the middle of the decade. Shares dropped 0.6%. Pearson saw its share price jump by 6.4% as the publisher released an optimistic outlook with a jump in revenue as lockdown restrictions ease.
Shares in Direct Line fell 1.8% as shareholders were not taken by a promise to buy back £100 million in shares as it revealed an 11% fall in pre-tax profit.
The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were Taylor Wimpey, up 7.75p to 178.65p, Whitbread, up 146p to 3,559p, Lloyds, up 1.705p to 41.78p, Pershing Square, up 100p to 2,525p, and HSBC, up 17.9p to 455.5p. The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were London Stock Exchange Group, down 518p to 7,606p, Avast, down 26p to 420p, Rentokil, down 16.1p to 466.7p, B&M, down 17.4p to 520p, and BT, down 4.15p to 137.3p.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here