London close: Footsie tracks gains on Wall Street

11th Apr 2013 17:25

After a tentative start the Footsie finished the Thursday session firmly in positive territory, tracking the renewed rise in Wall Street shares to near their best levels of the day and extending its recent winning streak to a fourth day despite some steep falls in the heavyweight mining sector.Renewed optimism regarding the Chinese economy has driven markets higher in the past few days, along with aggressive monetary easing measures in Japan. Since the start of the week, London's benchmark index has gained over 2.5%.Investors are now looking ahead to results from banking giants Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase, tomorrow, as well as the latest monthly retail sales figures from the Commerce Department. Jobless claims in focus US jobless claims data fell by 42,000 last week, to around 346,000, following a surprise jump to 385,000 the week before.Acting as a backdrop, investors were also casting a wary eye towards the results of today's Eurogroup meeting. FTSE 100: EVRAZ and ENRC provide a dragSteel group EVRAZ dropped early on after saying that it has decided to forgo a final dividend for 2012 after suffering a 31% drop in earnings as metals prices fell.Mining peer ENRC was also a heavy faller on rumours that its Chairman Mehmet Dalman could resign over disagreements with other executives.Resource stocks on the whole were under pressure since early on with Fresnillo and Glencore also among the worst performers. Even Xstrata was registering losses despite announcing that its Koniambo Nickel project in New Caledonia has gone into production after producing its first metal this week, a key milestone for the $5.0bn greenfield project.Heading the other way was High Street department store M&S as a strong performance in its Food division offset a weak performance in General Merchandise (GM). Nevertheless, the 3.8% fall in like-for-like GM sales was still better than the 4.5% decline expected by analysts.FTSE 250: Ashmore surged as AuM increasesAsset management group Ashmore was a high riser after reporting that assets under management (AuM) increased by 9.4% in the third quarter as it attracted funds from government clients. Sector peer Man Group also rose as a change in its regulatory status meant a $250m reduction in its capital requirements with the FCA. FTSE 100 - RisersMarks & Spencer Group (MKS) 400.40p +4.33%Weir Group (WEIR) 2,361.00p +3.42%IMI (IMI) 1,269.00p +3.09%Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,318.00p +2.97%Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 1,131.00p +2.82%WPP (WPP) 1,080.00p +2.76%Schroders (SDR) 2,212.00p +2.74%ITV (ITV) 126.70p +2.51%Melrose Industries (MRO) 263.60p +2.41%Aberdeen Asset Management (ADN) 424.00p +2.14%FTSE 100 - FallersEvraz (EVR) 185.80p -11.40%Eurasian Natural Resources Corp. (ENRC) 257.10p -4.74%Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 5,195.00p -2.72%Fresnillo (FRES) 1,291.00p -2.42%Polymetal International (POLY) 877.00p -1.79%Antofagasta (ANTO) 1,015.00p -1.65%Glencore International (GLEN) 351.70p -1.62%Associated British Foods (ABF) 1,841.00p -1.55%Aviva (AV.) 306.50p -1.45%Anglo American (AAL) 1,671.00p -1.42%FTSE 250 - RisersAshmore Group (ASHM) 401.00p +12.99%Hays (HAS) 101.20p +8.35%Man Group (EMG) 104.30p +6.76%WH Smith (SMWH) 793.50p +6.51%Howden Joinery Group (HWDN) 235.10p +5.90%Redrow (RDW) 200.30p +5.42%Chemring Group (CHG) 275.30p +5.28%Spectris (SXS) 2,351.00p +4.35%Elementis (ELM) 258.90p +4.31%Enterprise Inns (ETI) 104.20p +4.20%FTSE 250 - FallersKazakhmys (KAZ) 386.30p -5.87%Petropavlovsk (POG) 197.10p -5.42%Centamin (DI) (CEY) 45.36p -4.24%RPS Group (RPS) 255.30p -4.24%African Barrick Gold (ABG) 195.10p -3.42%Petra Diamonds Ltd.(DI) (PDL) 114.20p -3.22%Lonmin (LMI) 291.00p -2.32%Salamander Energy (SMDR) 205.60p -1.96%Vesuvius (VSVS) 343.20p -1.27%Moneysupermarket.com Group (MONY) 180.50p -1.20%FTSE TechMARK - RisersXaar (XAR) 490.00p +16.67%Triad Group (TRD) 6.00p +9.09%Promethean World (PRW) 18.00p +5.88%Vectura Group (VEC) 83.50p +5.70%Wolfson Microelectronics (WLF) 179.00p +5.29%Kofax (KFX) 314.25p +4.23%Optos (OPTS) 150.00p +2.56%Sepura (SEPU) 99.75p +1.79%Consort Medical (CSRT) 795.00p +1.53%BATM Advanced Communications Ltd. (BVC) 19.25p +1.32%FTSE TechMARK - FallersArk Therapeutics Group (AKT) 0.40p -11.11%Phoenix IT Group (PNX) 131.00p -4.55%NCC Group (NCC) 130.00p -3.70%RM (RM.) 77.50p -1.90%Filtronic (FTC) 59.62p -1.65%Vislink (VLK) 30.75p -0.81%Parity Group (PTY) 32.00p -0.78%Ricardo (RCDO) 420.00p -0.47%Torotrak (TRK) 29.88p -0.42%Antisoma (ASM) 1.85p 0.00%AB