LONDON: London’s FTSE 100 snapped a four-month winning streak on Friday despite recording a weekly gain after a tax-heavy UK budget lifted investor sentiment.
The globally focused FTSE 100 added 0.3 percent, logging its strongest weekly gain in over a month, while the midcap FTSE 250 added 0.3 percent, having a mild monthly drop.
Oil & Gas added 1.3 percent, tracking a gain in oil prices on prolonged Russia-Ukraine peace talks. Investors await the outcome of an OPEC+ meeting on Sunday.
Chemicals climbed 0.9 percent with shares of Johnson Matthey rising 2.4 percent after J.P.Morgan upgraded its rating on the company to “overweight” from “neutral.”
The UK’s Finance Minister Rachel Reeves raised the tax burden to a post-war high in the budget earlier this week, giving herself greater fiscal headroom. The credit rating agencies received the budget positively on Friday, though expressed concerns over execution risks.
Stocks globally rallied in the latter half of November as traders ramped up bets for a US Federal Reserve rate cut in December, following dovish remarks from policymakers.
The FTSE 100 at one point was down about 3 percent for November, but ended the month only down about 0.2 percent.
Global futures markets were thrown into chaos for several hours on Friday after CME Group, the world’s largest exchange operator, suffered one of its longest outages in years, halting trading across stocks, bonds, commodities and currencies.
Long-dated gilt yields were flat after dropping earlier this week, while the pound gained ground against the dollar from its drop early in the day.
Precious metal miners was the best performing sector this month as gold prices rallied, while the aerospace and defence sector is among the laggards as prospects of a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine grew.
On the flip side, hospitality firm Whitbread plunged 11.5 percent as the company warned the property tax hike from Reeves would cost it 40 million-50 million pounds.
Among other moving stocks, Burberry fell 2.9 percent after J.P.Morgan downgraded the luxury firm’s rating to “underweight.”
Mitchells & Butlers jumped 11.5 percent after the pub and restaurant operator reported annual profit above expectations.
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