FTSE 100 closes firmly higher despite disappointing service sector stats
- FTSE 100 closes 165pts higher
- Wall Street starts Thursday strongly
- UK Services PMI misses March expectations
- BT Group and Vodafone land 5G bandwidth, shares rise
- Rank Group issues profit warning as both bingo and casino revenue slides
FTSE 100 joined global equities to close firmly higher on Thursday as the pound weakened and China, US trade war worries eased.
The UK bluechip-benchmark closed over 165 points higher at 7,199, while the FTSE 250 added over 311 points at 19,576.
"Markets across the globe continued to bounce back as optimism increases that the US and China are willing to work towards avoiding an all-out trade war," said Fiona Cincotta, senior market analyst at City Index.
Sterling though lost 0.22% to 1.1439 against the Euro, and 0.58% against the US dollar.
"The pound sunk against the dollar after news that service sector activity grew at the slowest level since Brexit weighed on sentiment.
"Snow disruptions negatively impacted an already struggling sector and the fear now is that any thoughts of a May rate rise from the Bank of England could be firmly pushed back to the Autumn," said Cincotta, who added traders would now look towards the US non-farm payroll figures for further clues on direction.
Top riser on Footsie was Micro Focus International (LON:MCRO), up 8.86% to 1,094p. The biggest loser was Direct Line Insurance Group (LON:DLG), off 9.96% to 348.10p.
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