Markets rally after trade war fears subside

Stock markets bounced back from the doldrums as bargainhunting investors snapped up cheap shares that were knocked by trade war fears a day earlier.

The FTSE 100 ended the day up nearly 0.8% or 59.37 points at 7,651.33 points, after tumbling 2.3% on Wednesday.

Across Europe, the French Cac 40 and German Dax rose nearly 1% and 0.6% respectively.

David Madden, a market analyst at CMC Markets UK, said: “Stocks are in positive territory as some of the fears surrounding a trade war have subsided.”

Sterling edged into positive territory to trade higher by 0.14% against the US dollar at 1.322, and rose 0.05% versus the euro at 1.131.

Brent crude prices slipped 0.9% to 73.44 US dollars per barrel as Libyan oil exports started coming back online following nearly two weeks of closures for some oil fields.

In UK stocks, Sky shares jumped 51p to 1,545p after Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox was given the government’s all-clear to take over Sky.

Shares in Dart Group - the group behind airline Jet2 surged 259p to 999.5p after pretax profits jumped 49% to £134.6 million in the year ended March 31, while revenues increased 38%.

Sofa chain DFS rose 1.4p to 200p despite warning over fullyear earnings after the recent heatwave dented sales and shipments of made-to-order products from the Far East were hit by delays.

DFS said total like-for-like sales in the core business were about 3% lower in the 23 weeks to July 7 and around 4% lower in the 49 weeks of the year so far.