Member Article

Barclays leads FTSE to multi-month highs

There was initially an absence of significant news to push equity markets in any specific direction upon opening this morning, as has been the case over the last few days as indices however around multi-month highs. Recent risk appetite has been driven by improving economic data form the US, an increasing likelihood that the Chinese authorities will ease monetary policy, and improving bond yields in Europe’s troubled periphery.

Strong demand at French and Spanish auctions today did however lift sentiment, the latter getting debt away at much lower yields than last auctions, a positive given that the country was stripped of its triple-A rating less than a week ago. Financial earnings results out of the US, from Goldman Sachs yesterday and Morgan Stanley today, were welcomed by investors in the financial sector, ensuring banking stocks were particularly buoyant.

Those of the UK were no exception, with Barclays, Lloyds and RBS topping the blue-chip leader-board with gains in the regions of 10%, to 221p, 32p and 27p respectively. The performance of the financials helped the index to put on 39 points to 5741, a 0.7% gain that saw it reach levels not seen since the summer of last year.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by John Dance .