The FTSE 100 index slipped 4 points on Thursday, the final trading session of the pre-Easter week, but still gained 0.4% over the four-day week. The FTSE 250 enjoyed a much stronger performance this week, however, rising 1.1% in total after a 0.5% uptick on Thursday as the mid-cap index avoided the downward pressure applied by heavyweight miners at the start of the week. The top-tier index closed the week at 6,018 and the mid-cap index settled at 11,810.
A clutch of robust results have emerged from the US over the past two sessions and more upbeat corporate news came from within Europe today. In the UK, Autonomy (AU.) topped the FTSE 100 leaderboard with a jump of 7.4% after posting a 13% increase in first quarter revenues and a 7% rise in pretax profit. The software developer’s management also said it believes current market estimates will turn out to be conservative.
ARM Holdings (ARM), which rallied yesterday on the back of strong earnings from US tech bellwether Intel (INTC), enjoyed another strong start on Thursday after Apple’s (AAPL) earnings topped Wall Street estimates, but by close of play the London-listed chipmaker’s shares had succumbed to profit taking, down 0.5%. Apple announced a blowout quarter after the bell on Wednesday. Revenue increased 83%, driven by 126% iPhone revenue growth, 32% Mac revenue growth, $2.8 billion of iPad sales (there isn't a year-over-year growth figure because the iPad was released later in 2010), 23% growth in iTunes revenue, 17% growth in software sales, and 23% growth in revenue from peripherals.
After Wednesday’s surge in gold to an all-time high of $1,505, with prices still above $1,504 at the time of writing, a handful of diversified miners continued to attract buyers on the stock market. FTSE 100-listed Fresnillo (FRES), Kazakhmys (KAZ) and Eurasian Natural Resources (ENRC) added 1.6%-2.2% each.
Banks also prevented the FTSE falling further as first-quarter results from US company Morgan Stanley (MS) helped UK peers Barclays (BARC), Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) climb 1.5%, 1.4% and 1.4%, respectively.
Oil majors, which had provided strong support of the UK benchmark on Wednesday amid high commodity prices, struggled to build on recent gains. Royal Dutch Shell (RDSB) added just 0.2% Thursday, while BP (BP.) dropped 1.2%. One year since an explosion at the Deepwater Horizon rig triggered the Macondo well disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, BP today launched a lawsuit against rig-owner Transocean (RIG) for claim at least $40 billion in damages. Transocean shares initially dropped 10% on the news but had recovered much of this fall at last check.
Elsewhere on the FTSE’s down side, index heavyweight Vodafone (VOD) prevented the market from climbing above breakeven with a 4.3% slide in the mobile giant’s share price. The move came in line with falls seen on Amsterdam’s leading index where Vodafone-peer KPN (KPN) lost out after posting weaker-than-expected results. KPN closed down 8.3% on the AMX.
The UK market is now closed for a four-day Easter weekend and will reopen Tuesday for a short, but busy three-day week ahead of another four-day weekend thanks to the Royal wedding and May Day bank holiday. Find out What to Expect from the Week Ahead.