The market jumped up to a new all time high in early trading today, with the FTSE 100 Index leaping up 34p on yesterday’s closing high to 5799.
Continued merger speculation, which has kept the market bubbling and breaking records with astonishing frequency in recent weeks, continued to do its work today.
Moderate improvements on the Dow Jones index yesterday gave a positive lead, while large gains in the Asian markets gave an extra push.Far Eastern linked stocks benefited slightly from the Asian improvement. HSBC cashed up 8p to £18.70, Cable & Wireless improved 670p and Standard Chartered, recently the target of takeover speculation, gained 9p to 887p.
Predicted merger areas, the bank, the insurance companies and thepharmaceuticals groups, all saw gains. Zeneca was up 39p to £26.93 and Smith Kline Beecham was up 20p to 768p, while Glaxo Wellcome, rumoured to be considering a hostile bid for SmithKline Beecham, down 3p to £17.54.
Among the banks, Abbey National made hefty gains of 42p to £12.62, redressing yesterday’s falls following its poor showing in the mortgage market.Barclays grew 3p to £18.55, NatWest gained 9p to £11.11 and Lloyds TSBimproved 9p to 910p.
Alliance & Leicester announced it wanted a 10% share buyback deal in itsannual results today, which initially disappointed the City but went on to add 3p to its share price, bringing it up to 949p.
Nottingham Forest announced a loss before interest of £6.3m, butresults for the relegated club were never expected to be brilliant, and theshares remained at 58p.
EGi News 27/02/98
