London Report: Takeover talk and good Chinese data send FTSE soaring
THE FTSE 100 yesterday had its biggest one-day jump since March on the back of a burst of takeover activity and positive data from China.
Blue chip shares climbed 74.22 points – 1.11 per cent – to 6,784.67, the best daily performance since 25 March.
A report that US group United Technologies could be planning a 635p cash bid for Meggitt pushed up the UK engineer 9.57 per cent to 537p.
A fall in UK unemployment, from 6.6 per cent to 6.5 per cent also contributed to the gains.
Time Warner’s rejection of an $80bn (£47bn) approach from Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox sent BSkyB, where Murdoch still retains a stake, up 0.34 per cent to 890p.
ITV was up 3.61 per cent to 183.8p.
Better than expected GDP growth of 7.5 per cent from China supported commodity companies. Rio Tinto – which also announced a 23 per cent increase in second quarter iron ore shipments – rose 2.77 per cent to 3,334.5p while Anglo American added 3.3 per cent to 1,564p.