LONDON: London’s FTSE 100 gained on Monday after recording its worst week since February, as heavyweight energy and mining stocks jumped, while a drop in business activity raised worries of a slower economic growth.
The blue-chip FTSE 100 rose 0.3% with BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Glencore, and Anglo American being among the top boosts.
The domestically focussed mid-cap index was up 0.1%, with travel and leisure stocks leading the gains.
Strong commodity prices and dovish central bank policies have helped the FTSE 100 gain 10.2% so far this year, with the index set to end its first month above the 7,200-mark since January this year. However, surging COVID-19 cases and concerns of a slowing economy have also weighed on markets.
Britain’s post-lockdown economic bounce-back slowed sharply in August as companies struggled with unprecedented shortages of staff and materials, but strong inflation pressures cooled a bit, a survey showed.
“Services have seen a decent rebound in the last few months, but certain sectors are still struggling as a result of consumer behaviour which is much more cautious than it would have been pre-pandemic, leading to some softness” said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.
A flash reading of the PMI index showed UK business activity slowed in August. Although, it stays above the 50-mark, indicating that UK business activity is continuing to expand, just at a slower pace from the previous month. ? Among stocks, British supermarket group Sainsbury’s jumped 11.2% to the top of the FTSE 100 on reports that private equity companies were circling with a view to possibly launching bids of more than 7 billion pounds ($9.53 billion).
British airline easyJet gained 1.6% after it named former RBS Chief Executive Officer Stephen Hester as its chair designate.
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