Stocks in London were in the green at midday on Monday, with NatWest on the up after buying back government shares.
‘The FTSE 100 broke its losing streak to trade higher on Monday with healthcare and financial stocks doing much of the heavy lifting. There was wider optimism across Europe as stocks recovered from a rocky week,’ said AJ Bell’s Russ Mould.
The FTSE 100 index was up 64.00 points, 0.8%, at 8,136.39. The FTSE 250 was up 220.59 points, 1.1%, at 20,738.51, and the AIM All-Share was up 4.64 points, 0.6%, at 739.00.
The Cboe UK 100 was up 0.9% at 816.98, the Cboe UK 250 was up 1.3% at 18,196.76, and the Cboe Small Companies was down 0.1% at 18,196.76.
Croda International was up 4.7%, leading the FTSE 100.
The speciality chemicals firm said third quarter sales rose 5% to £407 million from £387 million a year ago. It is keeping its full-year outlook unchanged, eyeing an adjusted pretax profit of between £260 million and £280 million at constant exchange rates.
NatWest was up 2.9%.
The bank has repurchased £1 billion worth of its shares from HM Treasury, as the UK government continues to sell down its stake. The deal was for 262.6 million shares, a 3.2% stake, at 380.8 pence each, the stock’s closing price on Friday.
On the FTSE 250, Direct Line was down 0.1%.
The insurer said it will be cutting 550 jobs as it reported a 35% decline in gross written premiums and associated fees to £835.9 million from £1.28 billion the previous year. On-quarter this figure was down by 40% from £1.40 billion.
Ceres Power led the index, up 7.8%.
The clean energy technology developer was raised by broker Jefferies to ’buy’ from ’hold’. Jefferies also increased the price target to 265p from 190p.
On AIM, Cavendish Financial was up 3.7%.
The investment bank’s revenue jumped 42% to £27.7 million in the six months to September 30, from £19.5 million a year ago. The company swung to an interim pretax profit of £52,000 from a loss of £2.4 million.
Cavendish also declared an interim dividend of 0.3 pence per share compared to none a year prior.
In European equities on Monday , the CAC 40 in Paris was up 1.1%, while the DAX 40 in Frankfurt was up 1.3%.
The pound was quoted lower at $1.2887 at midday on Monday in London, compared to $1.2926 at the equities close on Friday. The euro stood lower at $1.0662, against $1.0731. Against the yen, the dollar was trading higher at JP¥153.75 compared to JP¥152.62.
Stocks in New York were called higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was called up 0.4%, the S&P 500 index up 0.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite up 0.3%.
Brent oil was quoted lower at $72.63 a barrel at midday in London on Monday from $73.58 late Friday.
Gold was quoted lower at $2,666.17 an ounce against $2,685.63.
On Monday’s economic calendar, US bond markets are closed for Veterans Day.
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