Top stocks bounce back

London’s top-flight stocks bounced back yesterday after a torrid few days of trading, despite China’s warning that it has kick-started preparations for a trade war with the US.

China said it will retaliate to tariffs from the US with tariffs on imports of 60 billion dollars (£46 billion) worth of US imports.

The FTSE 100 pushed ahead regardless and was up by as much as 1.1% or 83.17 points to 7,659.1 over the session.

However, this was shy of the 7,700 mark the index broke last week.

Continental indices were on the rise as well, with the Cac 40 in France up by 0.31% and the Dax in Germany climbing 0.42%.

Connor Campbell, financial analyst at SpreadEx, said: “It helps that the pound is in such a miserable state, sterling spending the day sporadically ducking under 1.30 dollars following July’s disappointing services PMI and Mark Carney’s threat that chances of a no-deal Brexit are ‘uncomfortably high’.”

Sterling, which slid yesterday despite the Bank of England’s rate rise, was broadly flat against the dollar at 1.301. Against the euro, the currency was also flat, at 1.123.

Brent crude was down 1% at 72.620 US dollars a barrel after a volatile week that saw traders worry about oversupply in the market when data showed high level of oil inventories in the US.

The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were Mondi up 164p to 2,236p, Rolls-Royce up 36p to 1,094p, Royal Bank of Scotland up 7.7p to 257.8p and Segro up 17.4p to 670p.

Among the biggest fallers were International Airlines Group down 15.2p and BAE Systems down 8.6p to 625p.