Banks led a rally on London’s leading shares index today after Lloyds Banking Group’s first quarter trading update cheered investors.
Lloyds shares surged 8% after a robust underlying performance boosted its recovery hopes and gave a lift to the rest of the heavily weighted banking sector.
The FTSE 100 Index rose more than 1%, or 74.5 points to 5,812.2, after stronger-than-expected US manufacturing data buoyed hopes for the world’s biggest economy.
In London, Lloyds was the biggest blue chip riser, 2.6p higher at 33.6p, after it revealed pre-tax profits of £288million for the first three months of the year and said it had made “substantial progress” against its turnaround objectives.
Royal Bank of Scotland, which is due to announce first quarter figures on Friday, was 1p higher at 25.3p, while Barclays was 8p higher at 226.2p.
BP’s shares were 3.7p lower at 441.3p however after it announced profits of £2.95billion in the first quarter, compared with the £3.08billion expected by City analysts.
The recent volatility in shares of fund manager Man Group continued with a decline of 5.7p to 97.8p, after it revealed funds under management fell nearly 15% to £36billion at the end of the first quarter. It has seen its share price decline 62% in the last 12 months.
The biggest Footsie risers included Imperial Tobacco up 92p at £25.56.
Among the biggest Footsie fallers were Next off 33p at £28.96 and Admiral down 11p at £12.
David Barclay, of investment manager and financial planning specialist Brewin Dolphin in Aberdeen, noted FirstGroup recovered 2.93% to close at 200.85p and Stagecoach added 2.86% at 255.45p.
Fallers included Parkmead Group, which dropped 4.64% to 18.375p, and Nautical Petroleum, which weakened by 1.48% to 333.75p.
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