Investors Focus on Wall Street
May 12, 2011
The blue-chip FT-SE 100 share index lost 17.3 points to 3867.7 on provisional volume of 462.4 million shares. The FT-SE 250 index of second-liners fell 15.9 points to end the day at 4416.2. U.S. markets opened flat, but as data on business activity and factory orders came out showing strong momentum to the economy's growth, indexes on both sides of the Atlantic ocean started to retreat. The U.S. data furthered fears that the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise interest rates soon. Corporate news was thin Friday, with the only major news coming from General Electric PLC.. The diversified engineering group, which isn't related to General Electric Co. of the U.S., announced its joint venture with French group Alcatel Alsthom is exploring a merger with power plant builder Framatome. Shares in GEC rose 5.5 pence to 385.5. The banking sector fell 1.1% Friday, while the life assurance sector fell 1.3%. HSBC Holdings was the hardest hit, falling 27.5 pence to 1123.5. Standard Chartered eased 13.5 pence to 710, and General Accident lost 17.5 pence to 656.5. Tobacco giant B.A.T shares dropped 8.5 pence to 430.5 on the back of a U.S. discount store's decision to stop selling cigarettes. Asda was one of the few companies to make progress on Friday, gaining 1.75 pence to 112 after recent pressure on the food retailing stock. Shares in Blenheim Group PLC fell 17.5 pence to 396.5 after it announced that takeover offers for the company have been rejected.
