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Heading into the last hour of trading, shares in London are slightly off earlier highs but still well up on the day.
After weeks of downbeat economic data, today has seen investors continue to focus on the positive news and this has lifted the FTSE out to its best levels in nearly two weeks. Financials have enjoyed a good day with the likes of Lloyds Banking Group and Prudential notching up gains of around 4%. With many speculating that there will be no surprisingly bad news from the forthcoming European bank stress tests at the end of this month, investors appear to have got their risk appetite back when it comes to the financial sector and this wave of optimism has helped keep this a broad based rally.
Not even a slight downgrade for the UK from the IMF has dented the mood today. Markets have instead focussed on the bigger picture of a slight raise in the organisation’s global growth estimate and this helped to calm at least some of the recent nerves regarding the risk of a double dip recession.
