FTSE 100 retreats from best score in 14 months

London’s FTSE 100 looked to be pushing towards an all-time high yesterday, but fell back in the afternoon and closed the day down.

The index briefly touched a high of 8,015.63 during the morning, its best score since February 2023, and only about 31 points lower than its record.

The FTSE has only traded higher on two days in its history, both a little under 14 months ago.

“The UK stock market continued where it left off before the Easter break and briefly made a new 14-month high above the 8,000 mark, despite disappointing UK house price data,” said Axel Rudolph, senior market analyst at online trading platform IG.

But by the end of the day the index’s fortunes had turned around. The index had closed down 17.53 points, or 0.22%, to end the day at 7935.09. The fall was led by Reckitt and Entain which both were about 5% down. It was offset big rises from some of London’s mining and oil companies.

The Frankfurt Dax index fell 1.09%, while the Cac 40 in Paris had closed down 0.92%.

Shortly after London closed, New York’s S&P 500 was trading down 1.03%, while the Dow Jones was 1.21% lower.

The pound was up 0.17% against the dollar at the same time at 1.2573, and had dropped 0.05% against the euro at 1.1677.

The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were Fresnillo, up 35.6p to 505.5p, Anglo American, up 89.7p to 2,041.5p, Shell, up 92p to 2,717p, Glencore, up 13.1p to 448.4p, and BP, up 12.9p to 508.6p.

The biggest fallers were Reckitt, down 237p to 4,275p, Entain, down 39.8p to 757.6p, Ocado, down 19.2p to 435.9p and Persimmon, down 46p to 1,270p.