FTSE 100’s highest close in 14 months
THE FTSE 100 pushed towards 7,000 points for the first time since early 2020 yesterday, but narrowly missed out on the prize.
London’s top index closed at its highest point since mid-February last year though it stopped shy of the symbolic mark.
At the end of the day it had 6,983.5 points after hitting an earlier high of 6,994.9.
It was a rise of 43.92, or 0.7%. The increase was largely thanks to London’s mining giants, with consistently good performances from the sector.
Rio Tinto, Antofagasta and Polymetal all ended the day up by well over 2%.
Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline however proved more of a race car, closing the day up more than 4.5%.
The company’s share price reacted to reports that Elliott Management had taken a multibillion-pound stake in GSK.
“This activist shareholder has a track record of shaking things up and Glaxo shares have seriously underperformed the wider market for several years,” said CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson.
“Earlier this year they hit their lowest levels in a decade, with the company being increasingly left behind by its peers AstraZeneca and Pfizer.
44 Percentage rise in the FTSE 100 Index in London last night
“The company is in the midst of a restructuring programme with the consumer business set to be split away from the wider pharmaceuticals business, and some shareholders may be starting to get restless.”
Abroad markets were telling a similar story to the FTSE 100. As markets in Europe closed, the Dow Jones looked set for a 0.8% rise. That put it on track to close above 34,000 points for the first time in history.
Its New York peer the S&P 500 was trading up 0.9%, while Germany’s Dax added 0.3% and France’s Cac rose 0.4%.
By the end of the trading day in London a pound could buy 1.3779 dollars, unchanged on the day before, or 1.1517 euros, up 0.1%.
The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were Smurfitt Kappa, up 161p to 3570p, GlaxoSmithKline, up 58.8p to 1348.4p, Mondi, up 70p to 1942.5p, Kingfisher, up 11.9p to 351.8p, and Antofagasta, up 60.5p to 1863p.
The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were Legal & General, down 14.6p to 276.1p, Lloyds, down 1.02p to 42.81p, Standard Life Aberdeen, down 6.5p to 285p, JD Sports, down 19.4p to 911.4p, and Compass Group, down 29.5p to 1573.5p.