Election worries give Sky a rollercoaster ride

THE FTSE 100 rose 1pc, or 77.35 points, to 7527.33 after the pound tumbled following the election.

Sky sank by nearly 4pc in early trading as the loss of a Tory majority looked set to complicate its £11.7bn takeover by Fox, which requires Government approval.

However, its price largely recovered the losses after Theresa May announced that she would remain as prime minister.

UBS analyst Polo Tang said a Tory majority would have made the Sky deal, which many campaigners and politicians oppose, quicker and more straight forward. Shares closed down 0.7pc, or 7p, at 980.5p.

Increased economic uncertainty caused by the election result hit domestic financial stocks such as

RBS, which was down 2.5pc, or 6.3p, to 250.9p, and Lloyds, which fell 1pc, or 0.7p, to 70p.

High Street names also suffered, with the likes of Next down 1.8pc, or 76p, to 4,276p, and Marks and

Spencer falling 1.8pc, or 6.6p, to 360.1p. But dollar earners rallied in the face of the weak pound and gold miners such as Fresnillo (up 3.6pc, or 60p, to 1,725pc) and

Randgold Resources (up 1.4pc, or 105p, to 7,600p) benefited as investors sought safe assets. Precious metal miner Hochs

child Mining jumped 2pc, or 5.9p, to 307.5p despite chief executive Ignacio Bustamante selling shares worth nearly £400,000.

After spending most of the day in the red, the FTSE 250 defied expectations by closing up 0.1pc, or 26.55 points, at 19769.96.

Analysts had predicted that the mid-cap index, which has a large domestic focus, would be hit by the falling pound as it was in the aftermath of the Brexit vote.

Animal breeding firm Genus stood strong yesterday in the face of a fresh lawsuit over its sale of bull semen in America.

In a claim filed at a Wisconsin court, US rival Inguran accused Genus of infringement on seven of its patents and made trade-secret and breach- of- contract claims against the company.

It marks the latest chapter in a long battle between the firms over Genus’s sexed semen technology, which is used by farmers to skew which gender is produced from artificial insemination.

Genus launched the product as an alternative to technology already in use by Inguran.

But this sparked a fierce rivalry between the two, which reached a head last August when courts put the kibosh on the technology developed by Genus, arguing that it had breached confidentiality obligations.

In April, the matter appeared to be resolved after a jury granted Genus permission to launch in the US, concluding that Inguran had illegally maintained a monopoly over the bull semen market.

Genus, which is based in Basingstoke, said it would ‘ vigorously defend’ itself against the latest allegations, and said there will be no delay to its entry into the US bull semen market this year.

The firm’s shares rose 0.5pc, or 9p, to 1,887p.

Copper miner Kaz Minerals saw £146m added to its value after announcing that the amount it can borrow from a syndicate of 12 banks has risen to £471.2m.

The loan facility – as the agreement is known – was increased on the back of strong market support for Kaz, and be will used to finance new mines in Kazakhstan. It was also boosted by a surge in the price of copper, which rose by more than 0.7pc following the release of better-than- expected May import and export numbers from China. Shares in Kaz rose 6.6pc, or 32.8p, to 532.5p.