FTSE 100 closes at highest level in two years

A roaring performance from London’s mining giants helped push the capital’s main index to its highest close in almost two years yesterday.

The FTSE 100 ended the day on 7,551.72, a rise of more than 60 points, and 0.8% higher than where it started the day.

It is the highest closing score that the index has managed to reach since January 24 2020, a day when the director general of the World Health Organisation called Covid an “emergency in China” which “has not yet become a global health emergency”.

“It may yet become one,” he prophetically warned at the time.

Just weeks later, stock markets went into meltdown as cases of the disease spread around the world.

The FTSE has now recovered to its pre-pandemic levels.

Yesterday, its rise was pushed by the mining giants.

“European markets have continued to push higher, with the FTSE 100 once again outperforming, as it continues its 2022 outperformance, rising to another post pandemic peak,” said CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson.

In the US, the S&P 500 was trading up 0.2%, while the Dow Jones had gained 0.1% shortly after markets closed in Europe.

Sterling dropped 0.1% against the euro while rising by the same amount against the dollar. By the end of the day one pound could be exchanged for 1.3702 dollars or 1.1979 euros.

Retailers dominated London’s reports.

JD Sports said it had an excellent Black Friday and Christmas.

Its sales meant that it could upgrade its £810 million pre-tax profit expectation to £875 million for the year, which ends in less than three weeks’ time.