London Report: Retail sales revival drives FTSE up to late January levels
The UK’S top equity index rose for a fifth straight session yesterday, boosted by retailers which were up strongly on industry data that provided more evidence the economic recovery is slowly gathering momentum.
The blue-chip FTSE 100 index closed up by 1.2 per cent, or 81.11 points, at 6,672.66 points – marking the index’s highest closing level since late January.
The FTSE 100 rose 14.4 per cent in 2013 to post its best annual gain since 2009, but the index has declined 1.1 per cent since the start of 2014 as global equity markets have fallen on political and economic concerns in emerging markets.
Retailers dominated the FTSE’s leaderboard of top-performing stocks, after a monthly industry survey showed retail sales rebounded after a weak December to record their strongest annual growth since April 2011. Sportswear retailer Sports Direct rose 3.4 per cent, clothing and food retailer Marks & Spencer gained 3.3 per cent while home improvements company Kingfisher was up 3.2 per cent.