Late rally helps market bounce back
A late rally by the banking and energy sector has helped the market bounce back and end with its head above water.
Following renewed optimism of a cut in interest rates, banking stocks such as Standard Chartered and Amvescap rose by 43p to £10.84p and 44p to £15.60 respectively.
Others risers included Abbey National, up 25p at £11.80, Lloyds TSB up 30.50p at 714.50p and HSBC ahead 21p at £10.37. The lift helped push the FTSE-100 Index to a close of 6232, up 22.7 points - reversing an earlier 46-point decline.
Energy stocks were up, boosted by quarterly results from US group Enron. Powergen ended the day up by over 3%, ahead 23p at 718p, Lattice rose 4.25p at 135p and Centrica was up 4.25p at 230.50p.
However, it was not all good news and telecoms stocks suffered after France Telecom unveiled the flotation prospectus for its Orange mobile phone business.
The float will value Orange shares at between 733p and 860p, giving it a market value of £35.2 billion to £41.3 billion, and is substantially lower than France Telecom had hoped for when it snapped up the firm last year.
Among the early telecom fallers were one-time Orange owner Vodafone, and BT, but these both regained lost ground to end the session down just 4.50p and 6p, to 231.50p and 698p, respectively.
The biggest Footsie risers were Celltech, up 66p at £13.28, Standard Chartered, up 43p at £10.84, Smiths, up 24p at 703p, Powergen, up 23p to 718p and Diageo, up 21.50p at 671.50p
The biggest fallers were Daily Mail & General Trust down 63.50p to 865.50p, Spirent, down 34p to 576p, Imperial Tobacco, down 30p to 638p, Carlton Communications, down 23p to 531p, and Dixons, down 11p at 260.50p.
