Markets: FTSE bounce led by banks and miners

BANKS and miners helped Britain’s blue-chip index close yesterday’s session with its biggest weekly gain since February.

The benchmark FTSE 100 Index rose 27.6 points or almost 0.5 per cent to 5,772.15 – a gain of 2 per cent for the week and recovering its early losses.

Traders were also looking to a weekend meeting of the International Monetary Fund which aims to bolster its war-chest to ease pressure on debt-ridden eurozone economies.

Michael Hewson, senior market analyst at CMC Markets, said: “The best performing UK sectors have been split between defensive and cyclical with healthcare and mining stocks both doing well. Among the best performing stocks has been Lloyds Banking Group after a positive broker reiteration.”

Lloyds rose 3 per cent or 0.8p at 30.1p with Investec noting that the part-nationalised lender was on the mend.

An encouraging note from Bank of America Merrill Lynch about European lenders Societe Generale and BNP Paribas provided a further boost to the sector, with Barclays 1.3p higher at 213.6p and Royal Bank of Scotland ahead 0.2p at 24p.

Sentiment was boosted by gains on Wall Street, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up by 0.8 per cent as the London market closed following better-than-expected earnings from General Electric and McDonald’s.

The retail sector failed to gain a significant boost from strong official sales figures, which were driven by panic buying of petrol and better clothes sales in the March “heatwave”.

Argos-owner Home Retail Group bounced by 4 per cent to 103.4p but B&Q-owner Kingfisher was down 1.7p at 304p and homewares specialist Dunelm slipped 2.5p to 505p.