UK investors returned after their Easter break to find their home market in good cheer – with the FTSE 100 jumping above the 8,000 mark on Monday morning.
Oil and mining companies helped drive those early gains, with BP and Shell both up more than 2% in early trading on Tuesday, while Rio Tinto and Anglo American both gained more than 3%. Commodity companies have been helped by rising commodity prices. Crude oil rose 1% yesterday to above $87 a barrel while gold hit a new high of $2,265 an ounce.
Elsewhere, there were signs of life returning to the UK economy – still officially in recession, of course – with a small positive reading for the manufacturing sector in the latest monthly purchasing managers’ index (PMI) flash data. Manufacturers returned to growth for the first time in well over a year.
There was also news on the housing market – still an important bellwether of UK growth – with mortgage approvals in February the highest since September 2022. That uptick has been helped by gradually falling mortgage rates. The average…
