Footsie held back by rise in pound’s value

The Footsie ended the day relatively flat as the pound recovered ground against the US dollar as traders dumped the greenback following disappointment over US Federal Reserve boss Janet Yellen’s early speech at the Jackson Hole conference in Wyoming.

Connor Campbell, a financial analyst at Spreadex, said Yellen’s speech, “perhaps unsurprisingly, failed to comment on the central bank’s future monetary policy plans”.

“That absence itself was seen as dollar-negative and further softened up the currency, which had already been hit by an awful durables goods orders reading,” he said.

The FTSE 100 ended down or 5.6 points at 7,401.46 with Provident Financial shares the best performing stock, rising 168p to 916p after losing more than 60 per cent of its value earlier this week. It comes after the new head of Provident Financial, Manjit Wolstenholme, ordered a management shake-up at the firm’s consumer credit business, days after the company issued a profit warning.

Dixons Carphone rose a mere 1.7p to 182.5p after HSBC downgraded the stock to “hold” from “buy” and cut its target price in half from 410p to 200p following the company’s profit warning a day earlier.

However, it emerged that Dixons Carphone chairman Ian Livingston has now more than doubled his stake in the retailer, buying nearly £100,000 worth of shares.

The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 also included Shire, up 55p to 3,750p, BHP Billiton ,up 20p to 1,437p, and Standard Life Aberdeen, up 5.3p to 441.6p.