Will the FTSE 100 smash the 8,000 barrier this year?

THE FTSE 100 index could smash through the 8000 mark for the first time this year, according to stock market experts.

Having risen by 12.1pc in 2019 and 39.3pc in the last decade, analysts believe the blue-chip benchmark will break records.

That would boost millions of savers with money in the stock market through pensions, ISAs and other investments.

The FTSE 100 closed down 44.61 points at 7542.44 yesterday, some way off the alltime high of 7903.5 in May 2018.

But Helal Miah, analyst at The Share Centre, tipped it to reach 8100 this year while Russ Mould, at AJ Bell, went for 8000.

Emma Wall, head of investment analysis at Hargreaves Lansdown, predicted 7884.

With Boris Johnson pledging to take Britain out of the EU on January 31, the US presidential election in November, and trade tensions ebbing and flowing, it looks set to be an eventful year.

Miah said: ‘Investors will realise UK shares trade are at low valuations and flock back to sectors that performed poorly in 2019 – utilities, banks, insurers.’

Mould said: ‘Brexit must still be resolved and doubts hover over the health of the global economy. Were the UK to strike a trade deal with the EU, Washington and

Beijing to settle their differences and governments abandon austerity, the outlook for next year could look very different.’

Wall said banks and housebuilders, will do well if a Brexit deal is delivered.

She said: ‘One almighty caveat: UK stocks only crank upwards if the US stock market does too. If the crash currently predicted by bond prices comes to fruition, global markets are all going down.’