FTSE 100 Rallies by Nearly 2%

Banking stocks lead the way, but Burberry and M&S shares take a dive after reporting disappointing results

Alanna Petroff 17 April, 2012 | 5:20PM
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The UK and European markets rallied strongly on Tuesday, with the benchmark FTSE 100 index shooting up by nearly 2%, supported largely by renewed confidence in Spain.

Spain sold more debt than it had planned on Tuesday, a sign of healthy demand. Yields on 10-year Spanish government bonds fell back below 6% after the bond auction, after cresting above the 6% threshold for the first time this year. Separately, the German ZEW indicator of investor sentiment posted a surprise increase, which boosted investor confidence.

Some corporate earnings out of the US also helped to instil confidence in the markets. “Better than expected earnings from US giant Goldman Sachs also supported financial stocks across Europe, and tows a similar outperforming theme to which was reported by Citigroup yesterday,” explains Joshua Raymond, chief market strategist at City Index.

The FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 climbed steadily throughout the day, adding 1.78% and 1.52%, respectively. The FTSE 100 closed at 5,767 after rising by 101 points. The FTSE 250 closed at 11,426, after adding 171 points to the index.

Barclays (BARC) and Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) led the financial companies forward, surging ahead by more than 4% each.

Meanwhile, two key UK retailers severely lagged the overall market after releasing disappointing trading statements.

Shares in Burberry Group (BRBY) plunged by nearly 6%, after releasing its trading results. While the numbers were considered decent, investors clearly had very high expectations for the company.  “Their share price is down ... as doubts creep in about the ability of the stock to play on the emerging and Asian market over the longer term,” explained Simon Denham, CEO at Capital Spreads.

Meanwhile, results from Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) also disappointed, causing shares to fall by nearly 2.5%.  “Today’s numbers come as rather a shock,” says Denham “For a stock that had until this morning appreciated some 20% so far this year, some investors will be nursing a bit of a loss after the dire numbers. The worry is its core merchandise unit, which saw like-for-like sales decline a whopping 2.8%, which does not make for good reading when you consider that the previous quarter had seen a decline of 1.8% and the market was expecting some sort of a recovery with a rise of 0.2% ... On top of this the hope was that any disappointment here would be propped up by good food sales, but even these came in worse than expected.”

With files from Dow Jones

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Alanna Petroff

Alanna Petroff  is a financial journalist with Morningstar UK.

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