FTSE retreats from 14-month highs
The index briefly looked as though it might beat its all-time high early on Tuesday, but later fell back.
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Your support makes all the difference.London’s FTSE 100 looked to be pushing towards an all-time high on Tuesday, but fell back in the afternoon and closed the day down.
The index briefly touched a high of 8,015.63 during the morning, its best score since February 2023, and only about 31 points lower than its record.
The FTSE has only traded higher on two days in its history, both a little under 14 months ago.
“The UK stock market continued where it left off before the Easter break and briefly made a new 14-month high above the 8,000 mark, despite disappointing UK house price data,” said Axel Rudolph, senior market analyst at online trading platform IG.
But by the end of the day the index’s fortunes had turned around. The index had closed own 17.53 points, or 0.22%, to end the day at 7935.09.
The fall was led by Reckitt and Entain which both were about 5% down, it offset big rises from some of London’s mining and oil companies.
In Europe the Frankfurt Dax index fell 1.09%, while the Cac 40 in Paris had closed down 0.92%.
A little while after London closed, New York’s S&P 500 was trading down 1.03%, while the Dow Jones was 1.21% lower.
The pound was up 0.17% against the dollar at the same time at 1.2573, and had dropped 0.05% against the euro at 1.1677.
There was little company news on the market on Tuesday. Shares in Superdry plummeted more than 55% after news that was announced last week after markets had closed.
The company said that chief executive Julian Dunkerton was not planning to make an offer to buy the business, after being linked to a takeover.
Elsewhere shares in Revolution Bars were suspended after the chain was unable to publish its results on time. It did not say why there had been a delay and said the results would be made public in “due course”.
The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were Fresnillo, up 35.6p to 505.5p, Anglo American, up 89.7p to 2,041.5p, Shell, up 92p to 2,717p, Glencore, up 13.1p to 448.4p, and BP, up 12.9p to 508.6p.
The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were Reckitt, down 237p to 4,275p, Entain, down 39.8p to 757.6p, Ocado, down 19.2p to 435.9p, Persimmon, down 46p to 1,270p, and Burberry, down 41.5p to 1,171.5p.