London close: Stocks track end of month bounce on Wall Street
There were no spooks or frights in London equity markets on Wednesday, just a welcome treat of rising prices at the end of what has been a torrid month for global stocks.
The FTSE 100 was up 1.31% or 92.25 points to 7,128.10, clawing back recent losses to reach its best levels in three weeks - but still on track for a monthly drop of around 6%. Sterling was up 0.46% against the dollar to 1.27644 and by 0.77% versus the euro at 1.1287.
Bolstering the pound, Brexit Secretary, Dominic Raab, said he expected a deal on the UK's withdrawal by 21 November.
In a letter sent to Hilary Benn, the chairman of Parliament's Brexit Select Committe, on 24 October, but published on Wednesday, Raab said that a "great deal of progress" had been made over recent weeks.
The rebound in shares could well be down to some end-of-month position adjusting by institutional investors, said market analyst Michael Hewson at CMC Markets, though he also pointed to some indications in the past few days that the market might have found a "short-term base, with most of the bad news already priced in to some extent".
"This may be why markets shrugged off the latest Chinese manufacturing and services PMI data for October which pretty much confirmed that the Chinese economy was slowing down," he added.
China's official manufacturing PMI index hit its lowest level in over two years at 50.2, down from 50.8 for the month before and worse than the forecast of 50.6 as new export orders contracted for the fifth month in a row. The non-manufacturing PMI was equally ghoulish, dropping to 53.9 from 54.9, where economists expected it to remain.
Chris Beauchamp at IG was somewhat more cautious, telling clients: "Although off the highs of the day, the solid recovery across equity markets remains intact, as investors take comfort from better earnings and start tentatively moving back into equities after one of the toughest months in history.
"Globally, stocks are about $8 trillion cheaper over the past month, so this discount sale is bound to tempt the bargain hunters, but investors should be wary about assuming that things will go back to normal."
On the corporate front, Standard Chartered reared up after posting a 31% jump in underlying third-quarter pre-tax profit, driven by lower-than-expected impairments and costs.
Packaging and paper specialist Smurfit Kappa was higher on the back of a well-received trading statement and news that it has agreed to buy a corrugated plant and a paper mill in Belgrade from Kappa Star Group for €133m. Peers DS Smith also Mondi also rose.
William Hill advanced as made it an offer of 2.8bn (£240m) Swedish krone for online gaming company Mr Green, while NEX Group was on the front foot after the Competition and Markets Authority cleared its acquisition by CME Group.
Retirement products specialist Just Group finished lower even after it reported new business sales up 17% in the third quarter.
On the downside, it was a little-shop-of-horrors for Next as the retailer reported a frightful decline in store sales for the third quarter, though a solid online performance prevented a true horror show. Marks & Spencer was dragged down in sympathy.
Computacenter shrieked lower as it reported a drop in third-quarter revenue, while Intu Properties slipped after the shopping centre owner said it had given a consortium led by its deputy chairman John Whittaker until 15 November to make an offer.
There was no shortage of broker notes for investors to sink their fangs into. Inchcape surged following an upgrade to 'overweight' at Barclays, while Spire Healthcare was lifted to 'hold' at Berenberg and Intertek was boosted to 'buy' at Kepler Cheuvreux.
WH Smith was upgraded to 'buy' from 'hold' at Peel Hunt and William Hill was lifted to 'overweight' from 'equalweight' by Morgan Stanley.
Restaurant Group was under the cosh after downgrades from both Citi and Liberum following news on Tuesday that it was buying the Wagamama restaurant chain.
Intu Properties was cut to 'reduce' from 'buy' by AlphaValue, while IWG was downgraded to 'sell' from 'hold' at Peel Hunt. Goldman Sachs cut Pets at Home to 'sell' from 'neutral'.
Market Movers
FTSE 100 (UKX) 7,128.10 1.31%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 18,917.68 1.34%
techMARK (TASX) 3,300.70 0.90%
FTSE 100 - Risers
NMC Health (NMC) 3,532.00p 5.24%
Glencore (GLEN) 319.20p 4.73%
Ashtead Group (AHT) 1,935.50p 4.23%
Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,811.00p 4.02%
BP (BP.) 567.30p 3.90%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 784.80p 3.75%
Evraz (EVR) 543.00p 3.59%
Just Eat (JE.) 608.00p 3.54%
BAE Systems (BA.) 525.80p 3.50%
Anglo American (AAL) 1,675.20p 3.29%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
National Grid (NG.) 829.20p -2.37%
Fresnillo (FRES) 848.60p -2.19%
Severn Trent (SVT) 1,860.00p -1.95%
Next (NXT) 5,230.00p -1.92%
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 1,511.20p -1.72%
Centrica (CNA) 147.20p -1.60%
United Utilities Group (UU.) 726.60p -1.60%
British American Tobacco (BATS) 3,393.50p -1.58%
BT Group (BT.A) 240.55p -1.27%
Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) 296.50p -1.27%
FTSE 250 - Risers
WH Smith (SMWH) 1,948.00p 6.93%
TBC Bank Group (TBCG) 1,690.00p 6.29%
Premier Oil (PMO) 107.50p 6.09%
Inchcape (INCH) 544.00p 6.08%
TI Fluid Systems (TIFS) 207.00p 5.83%
Fisher (James) & Sons (FSJ) 1,694.00p 5.48%
On The Beach Group (OTB) 428.50p 5.28%
Syncona Limited NPV (SYNC) 261.00p 5.03%
Tullow Oil (TLW) 225.80p 4.97%
Beazley (BEZ) 527.50p 4.87%
FTSE 250 - Fallers
Computacenter (CCC) 1,098.00p -12.58%
Softcat (SCT) 645.00p -5.84%
IWG (IWG) 230.00p -3.85%
Ferrexpo (FXPO) 208.90p -3.24%
AA (AA.) 100.10p -3.00%
Amigo Holdings (AMGO) 214.80p -2.63%
Hochschild Mining (HOC) 157.60p -2.08%
Kier Group (KIE) 876.00p -2.07%
Assura (AGR) 52.40p -2.06%
Inmarsat (ISAT) 458.90p -1.85%