London market ends November in the green as financial stocks gain
The FTSE 100 rose 30.29 points, or 0.41%, to end the day at 7453.75.
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Your support makes all the difference.Shares in London’s top index gained on Friday to end November having gained just over 100 points.
The FTSE 100 rose 30.29 points, or 0.41% to end the day at 7453.75.
The gains on Thursday were led in part by the some of the index’s financial and energy stocks.
Standard Chartered, Hargreaves Lansdown, HSBC and NatWest were all close to the top, as was BP.
It’s been a strong end to the month for European markets which have seen their best gains this year, with the notable exception of the FTSE 100 which has struggled to keep pace with its peers, due to the underperformance of its big caps of BP, Shell, and AstraZeneca
“Today’s gainers have been the likes of BP and Shell in the wake of this afternoon’s agreement by OPEC+ to cut another one million barrels a day off production output, starting next year,” said CMC Markets analyst, Michael Hewson.
“Rolls-Royce is also having another strong session, and is one of the best performers this month, up over 25%, while housebuilders have also had a strong November with Barratt Developments and Taylor Wimpey leading the gains here.”
But, Mr Hewson said, the FTSE has lagged behind its peers this month. The index closed October on 7,322 points.
“It’s been a strong end to the month for European markets which have seen their best gains this year, with the notable exception of the FTSE 100 which has struggled to keep pace with its peers, due to the underperformance of its big caps of BP, Shell, and AstraZeneca,” he said.
At the end of the day in Europe, Frankfurt’s Dax index rose 0.30%, while the Cac 40 in Paris had closed up 0.63%.
In New York, a little while after markets had closed in Europe, the S&P 500 was trading down 0.13%, while the Dow Jones was 0.84% higher.
On currency markets, the pound was trading 0.4% lower against the dollar at 1.2643 and had risen 0.1% against the euro at 1.1586.
In company news, Metro Bank said that it planned to cut about 850 jobs and is looking into whether it should keep its branches open seven days a week as it tries to rein in costs.
The company said that it planned cuts of about 20% to its approximately 4,266-strong workforce.
Shares in the business closed up 3.5% on Thursday.
Elsewhere, Dr Martens said that weakness in the US had taken a chunk out of its performance in the last few months.
The shoemaker said that sales had dropped 5% in the six months to September and warned that earnings this year will be lower than previous expectations.
Shares in the business plunged by more than 21% after the profit warning.
The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were: Smurfit Kappa, up 136p to 3,008p; DS Smith, up 6.4p to 290.6p; Rolls-Royce, up 5.4p to 268.8p; Standard Chartered, up 12.8p to 653.2p; and Bunzl, up 59p to 3,002p.
The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were: Severn Trent, down 115p to 2,601p; United Utilities, down 34p to 1,091p; Beazley, down 14.5p to 536p; Airtel Africa, down 2.3p to 109.5p; and Rentokil, down 5.9p to 428.7p.