Oil price rise, strong US markets and weak pound boost FTSE Market report

The FTSE climbed higher as a recovery in oil prices, strong Wall Street opening and weak pound all helped London firms in the afternoon session.

While world leaders descended on Glasgow for Cop26, oil prices continued to buoy the markets by rebounding despite Opec+ releasing another 400,000 barrels a day onto the global market.

Resource and oil firms were therefore among the day’s winners, helping to offset a heavy slump in value by Darktrace as investors in the cyber business got the jitters.

The FTSE 100 closed 51.05 points, or 0.71 per cent, higher at 7,288.62 on Monday.

The price of oil started marching back towards the three-year highs it hit last month, as Brent crude rose by 1.06 per cent to 84.61 dollars per barrel.

London’s biggest multinational firms also benefited from weakness in the value of the pound ahead of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee later this week.

Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, said: “Even a rate hike from the Bank of England this week shouldn’t provoke too much excitement, and it will be a while before the next one.

“The recent fading of the pound’s rally against the dollar points towards the view that a rate increase has been firmly priced in.”

Sterling dropped against a dollar which was itself weak against many of the world’s key currencies.

The pound was 0.12 per cent lower versus the US dollar at 1.366, and down 0.15 per cent against the euro at 1.178. Across Europe, the other major markets also made positive strides as the German

Dax increased by 0.76 per cent, as the French Cac declined by 0.96 per cent.

In the US, the markets picked up where they left off on Friday to bounce to record highs ahead of Tuesday’s Federal Reserve meeting.

In company news, Barclays finished lower after its boss Jes Staley quit following the preliminary findings of an investigation into his role as private banker to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Shares dropped by 1.4p to 200.85p after the departure of the CEO.

The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were BT, up 6.1p at 145p, Next, up 218p at 8,184p, Fresnillo, up 22.2p at 885.4p, and Pearson, up 14.6p at 617p.

The biggest fallers of the day were Darktrace, 121p at 681.5p, Barratt, down 19.2p at 643.8p, Ocado, down 48p at 1,755p, and Taylor Wimpey, down 3.95p at 150.6p.