There’s still no stopping the Footsie. The benchmark index has had a fantastic 2013, and today reached yet another milestone, breaching the 6400 level for the first time since 2008.
A wave of spring optimism engulfed the market, with investors piling into equities as the pound tumbled on Mervyn King’s backing for more quantitative easing.
“The world is still bankrupt, but nobody seems to care,” said one City trader. “Fund managers and pension funds are sitting on mountains of cash, and it has to go somewhere.”
Another trader declared there was a “return to confidence”.
He added that the Square Mile was expecting new corporate mergers because so many companies have cash on their balance sheets “ready to spend”.
Another theory put forward by one dealer was that new shorting rules in Europe are attracting more money in to London. Despite going ex-dividend, the FTSE 100 added 22.41 points to 6401.48.
Good sales at drinks can maker Rexam led the index up as the group added 25.3p to 502.3p.
But at the other end of the table, RSA Insurance slumped 17.9p to 118.4p after it announced that it is cutting its dividend for the first time in 10 years.
Telecoms giant Vodafone, down 0.2p to 163.4p, was still weak after a downgrade from analysts at Bernstein Research yesterday. Vodafone is rumoured to be planning a bid for Kabel Deutschland, and is said to have sought advice from Goldman Sachs. But today, during Kabel’s results update, finance boss Andreas Siemen declined to comment on any contact with Vodafone regarding a deal.
The UK’s biggest estate agency, Countrywide, today announced plans for a £650 million float, and property agent Savills topped the mid-caps, up 18p to 527.25p, on the news.
Eqyptian gold miner Centamin was given a glittering report from analysts at Goldman Sachs today.
They claim that, although gold has been one of the “best-performing commodities over the past decade”, 2013 could be the “turning point for gold’s impressive run”.
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But they say gold miners are still worth buying, and think that Centamin has “growth nearing completion and strong cash flow on the way”. They gave the stock a 130p price target but the shares edged down 0.5p to 57.5p.
Imperial Leather soap maker PZ Cussons sold its Polish homecare brands, and analysts at Investec think it will focus instead on beauty lines in the country.
Shares in the group, which sells Sanctuary Spa products advertised by former ballet star Darcey Bussell danced up 3.8p to 400p.
Over on AIM, Gulf Keystone said that the Bakrman-1 exploration well in Kurdistan, in which it has a 20% stake, has discovered hydrocarbons while its large Shaikan discovery’s first production facility is now close to completion.
The shares trickled up 0.75p to 199.75p.
