London close: Wall Street helps Footsie
Encouraging US non-farm payrolls data and rampant miners had London nudging 6,600 this afternoon, although Footsie closed a little below the big figure.
The three mining heavyweights Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Anglo American were all ahead on buoyant metal markets, although Kazakhmys was leading the way for most of the day.
Oil majors also made up ground as US light crude for November delivery trades at $81.03 a barrel in electronic trade. Prices leapt $1.50 overnight. BP, BG and Shell were doing well.
Barclays edged up after officially throwing in the towel on its bid battle for ABN Amro. The way is now clear for the bid for the consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland.
Investors also tucked into confectionary giant Cadbury Schweppes after Sanford Bernstein said 'outperform' with 705p target.
It has been a very poor day for property groups following British Land's failure to sell its Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield because of the credit crunch. Land Securities, Liberty and Hammerson were all deep in the red.
Northern Rock was also lower as investors continues to wait for bid news, while an ABN Amro downgrade to 'hold' from 'buy' upended Halifax-owner HBOS.
Meanwhile, residential property owner Grainger reversed an early lead despite saying increased volumes and improved margins on sales will help trading profits beat those achieved in 2006. It accepts the housing market will slow in the coming months.
No-frills airline easyJet flew higher as it expects to beat its previous guidance for year pre-tax profit after booking an £11m gain from its investment in The Airline Group. Passenger growth remained strong for September, up 14.2% versus the same month last year.
There were bumper gains for stockbroking and corporate finance outfit WH Ireland after it admitted receiving a number of early stage bid approaches.
Data search software specialist Autonomy rallied on news it has entered into an expanded license agreement with Dutch information services and publishing company Wolters Kluwer.
Elsewhere, coal miner ATH reported trading has been in line with the directors expectations for the year and operations continue to perform well. Sales and production are within forecasts at approximately 2.1m tonnes (year to 1 October 2006: 1.8m tonnes) and the profit before tax is anticipated to be in line with market forecasts.
E2v Technologies said overall performance in the first half is in line with expectations. Sales growth was led by strong demand in the aerospace and defence sector for sub-systems within the electronic tube product group. But the sustained weakness of the US dollar, the slow down in the dental digital x-ray market and the timing of contract awards in other sectors has affected its order book.
Cape Lambert Iron Ore tumbled Friday after it cancelled a A$240m deal with a Chinese investor who failed to satisfy terms of the original sale agreement.
FTSE 100 - Risers
Kazakhmys (KAZ) 1,596.00p +4.59%
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) 1,055.00p +3.94%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 826.00p +3.25%
Yell Group (YELL) 463.25p +3.06%
Anglo American (AAL) 3,343.00p +2.92%
Rio Tinto (RIO) 4,250.00p +2.88%
Cadbury Schweppes (CBRY) 600.00p +2.56%
BHP Billiton (BLT) 1,745.00p +2.53%
SABMiller (SAB) 1,451.00p +2.47%
WPP Group (WPP) 691.50p +2.44%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
Alliance & Leicester (AL.) 794.00p -6.81%
Hammerson (HMSO) 1,168.00p -4.26%
Barratt Developments (BDEV) 765.00p -4.14%
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British Land (BLND) 1,124.00p -3.44%
Land Securities Group (LAND) 1,687.00p -3.21%
Liberty International (LII) 1,153.00p -2.70%
Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 293.50p -2.49%
Northern Rock (NRK) 158.50p -1.98%
Tate & Lyle (TATE) 427.25p -1.78%
Persimmon (PSN) 1,050.00p -1.59%
FTSE 250 - Risers
Moneysupermarket.com (MONY) 189.50p +5.57%
easyJet (EZJ) 571.50p +4.38%
RPS Group (RPS) 365.00p +4.21%
Severfield-Rowen (SFR) 2,110.00p +4.04%
Debenhams (DEB) 102.25p +3.81%
Henderson Group (HGI) 179.50p +3.46%
Randgold Resources (RRS) 1,558.00p +3.45%
Inchcape (INCH) 468.50p +3.19%
Tullett Prebon (TLPR) 448.00p +3.11%
Carillion (CLLN) 419.75p +3.07%
FTSE 250 - Fallers
Bradford & Bingley (BB.) 285.00p -6.48%
International Personal Finance (IPF) 210.00p -4.00%
Mondi (MNDI) 422.50p -3.76%
Ashmore Group (ASHM) 291.00p -3.40%
Workspace Group (WKP) 345.00p -3.36%
Redrow (RDW) 407.00p -3.21%
DS Smith (SMDS) 203.50p -3.10%
COLT Telecom Group S.A. (COLT) 167.00p -3.05%
Cattles (CTT) 363.75p -3.00%
Bovis Homes Group (BVS) 695.50p -2.86%
