Closing up 0.18% FTSE 100 holds firm
Closing up 0.18% FTSE 100 holds firm
Tuesday, 27, Oct 2009 05:30
The FTSE closed up 9.23 points to 5,200.97 - only falling below the opening price twice during the day.
The index held firm after yestday's falls, closing up 0.18 per cent.
BP lead the gains - as its better than expected quarterly results bucked forecasts despite seeing a 50 per cent fall in profits.
The oil giant ended the day up 4.81 per cent.
Reed Elsevier was up 3.32 per cent, Home Retail Group climbed 2.71 per cent and GlaxoSmithKline rose 2.15 per cent.
Royal Bank of Scotland was down 8.14 per cent to 40.81p and Lloyds Banking was down 6.16 per cent to 83.84p.
Both lenders were struck as uncertainty over rights issues and their use of the government's asset protection scheme maintained.
Meanwhile moves in Europe for ING to sell off assets to meet competition rules over state aid, and raised concerns the duo may have to follow suit.
Vedanta Resources was down 5.06 per cent and Man Group lost 4.30 per cent.
Over in New York, the Dow was up 0.43 per cent to 9,910.21 by 12:50 EDT (16:50 GMT), while Chicago's S&P 500 was up 0.14 per cent.
Anthony Grech, market analyst at IG Index, said: "Significant gains are looking increasingly hard to come by lately, with the UK index tending to give up advances fairly readily.
"The rate of the summer rally was never going to be sustainable, but the momentum really seems to have been lost now.
"Emblematic of this is the banking sector, which remained under pressure today; most major players - including RBS and Barclays - were heavily in the red."
He added traders were waiting for significant improvements in tangible fundamentals before ploughing further cash into banking equities.