Another high for Footsie as rally rolls on

The New Year stock market rally continued, sending the FTSE 100 to a fresh intraday and closing high while peers overseas continued to gather pace.

London’s blue-chip index was trading as high as 7,727.73 points around midday before edging back slightly to end the day up nearly 0.4 per cent or 28.34 points at 7,724.22 points. It tops a closing high of 7,695.88 points reached just a day earlier. Ratings upgrades fuelled gains in Centrica and United Utilities stocks, which topped the FTSE 100 at the close.

Across the Pond, US equity markets were pushing higher, driven in part by worse-thanexpected non-farm payroll data, which showed that the US economy added 148,000 jobs in December.

David Madden, a market analyst at CMC Markets, said :“It’s business as usual on Wall Street as the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 all post new record highs. The bullish sentiment surrounding American stocks was fuelled by the announcement of the latest non-farm payrolls report.

Shares in housebuilder Cairn slumped 3.5 per cent or 0.07p to 1.92p, despite the firm issuing forecasts for higher earnings.

Johnson Service Group rose 2.4p at 144p after the workwear and linen firm said full-year results would be “slightly ahead” of management expectations, as it announced the acquisition of Wrexham-based Starcounty, a specialist hotel and catering linen business, for £3.9 million. Online instrument seller Gear4music tumbled 6 per cent or 47p to 725p despite sales climbing 42 per cent.