Drug, Bank Stocks Lead Rally
April 04, 2011
The Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100-share index closed up 27.1 at 3708.4 on volume of 514.3 million shares. The benchmark September futures ended the trading day at 3705, compared with Monday's close at 3677. The FT-SE 250 index of mid-capitalization stocks rose 5.9 to 4236.9. Investors in London cheered the stability of the U.S. market early Tuesday and were encouraged by gains in the Asian equity markets. ``The Dow Jones Industrial Average was quite firm in the afternoon, and good news from a number of companies really pulled the index up,'' said Rosenda Starnes, investment director at Gerrard Vivian Gray. ``Predominately, there were one or two big moves, as some stocks rallied and others were really struggling.'' Traders said stocks gained additional strength from the Treasury Department's &#163;2 billion auction of five-year gilt stock that received was 4.8 times oversubscribed. But pharmaceutical and bank sectors took center stage Tuesday, traders said. The drug sector, representing the FT-SE 350, rose 1.5% to close at 5173.8, as giant Glaxo Wellcome rallied 20 1/2 to 911 1/2. The drug giant said Tuesday its anti-HIV drug Epivir has been cleared for production following an independent study by the Data and Safety Monitoring Board. Meanwhile, Vivien James's Ms. Starnes attributed the banking sector's gains to optimism ahead of the release of corporate earnings results, due out in the next three weeks. The banking sector ended the day at 4138.9, up 1.2%. ``Lloyds TSB kicks off the season on Friday and there are expectations for some quite big dividend increases,'' she said. ``Also, the sector has been in the doldrums a little lately.'' Shares in HSBC Holdings rose nearly 2.5% to close at 1068 following the announcement that its Hong Kong subsidiary, HSBC Americas, posted net income of $175 million for the first six months of 2011. Elsewhere, the debut of Allied Carpets on the London Stock Exchange sparked strong buying interest. Its share price surged to 234 from its initial offering price of 219. Rival Houston climbed 23 to 547 after it announced Tuesday that sales in the first 12 weeks of 2011 are up 33% over the same period in 2010.
