The FTSE-100 Index crept to new record highs this morning amid pitifully thin Christmas Eve trading.
There would have been cheers in the City, but with most traders at home celebrating the festive season, any celebrations were muted.
The Footsie reached 6,804.7 points in the opening minutes although only a handful of shares had been traded at that point.
As volumes picked up slightly, the index slipped to 6779.6 – up 2.8 points.
There was no repeat of the massive Wall Street gains overnight, which saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq and S&P 500 indices all hit new record highs.
Technology stocks had another mixed session, with Misys, yesterday’s biggest riser, falling 25{p to 920p and computer chip designer ARM Holdings, one of the biggest fallers in the previous session, up 163p to £39.02.
News was thin, leaving the few analysts left in the Square Mile to work only on a clutch of small company announcements.
Cambridge Antibody Technology unveiled a lucrative collaboration with Monsanto’s Searle arm over drug development programmes. The biggest
tie-up ever for the British group propelled its shares 46p forward to 537p.
And hearing aids group Hidden Hearing announced it had received a takeover approach, turning up its shares 7p to 77p despite warning of accounting errors.
EGi News 24/12/99
