Vaccine shot in the arm to UK markets

OPTIMISM over the potential for the economy to open up again, as it was revealed that 15 million people had been vaccinated by the NHS, helped send shares soaring yesterday.

Only two of 100 of London’s biggest firms that make up the FTSE 100 fell into negative territory, as the index was pulled upwards. Gold and silver miner Fresnillo notched up the worst drop, at 0.4%, in stark contrast to most of its mining rivals on the index, which crowded among the top winners for the day.

Glencore, Anglo American, Rio Tinto and BHP all closed more than 6% higher on the day. They were joined by oil companies Shell and BP as well as some of the banks.

It helped push the index up by 2.5% to 6,756.11, a rise of 166.32 points.

“Natural resource stocks are benefitting from the wider optimism that the global economy will recover and in turn, mineral demand will rise,” said CMC Markets analyst David Madden.

Oil demand also helped push the price of Brent crude oil up by around 1.5% to 63.35 dollars per barrel. Mr Madden added: “In light of the news that Britain is making great progress in terms of rolling out vaccines, there is chat

166 Points rise in the FTSE 100 Index in London last night

ter the country will begin to ease up on restrictions sooner rather than later. There is a growing sense the country will be allowed to slowly re-open in the next few weeks or months, which should spark economic activity.”

It was in part this which helped the FTSE 100 outperform its European counterparts. The Dax, which is Germany’s main index, closed up by 0.5%, while the Paris-based Cac rose 1.5%.

London’s top index was however unable to compare itself to its US peers, which were closed for Presidents’ Day.

Mitchells & Butlers announced plans to raise £350 million from big investors by selling them around 167 million new shares. The company owns Toby Carvery and All Bar One.

Investors said that without their cash the future of the pub business, which employs 40,000 people in the UK, would be “bleak”. Shares rose 7.9%.

The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were IAG, up 13.6p to 159.55p, BP, up 20.45p to 278.9p, Shell ‘B’, up 97p to 1380p, Compass Group, up 105p to 1496p, and Shell ‘A’, up 98.8p to 1436p.

The only fallers on the FTSE 100 were Fresnillo, down 4p to 1024p and RSA Insurance, down 0.6p to 676.6p.