Energy stocks led Britain's top shares in a rebound on Friday after a sharp sell-off in the previous two sessions. The top FTSE 100 riser, however, was Royal Bank of Scotland, up 6.5 percent on reports the part-nationalised bank could leave the government's asset protection scheme early. Fellow part-nationalised lender Lloyds Banking Group gained 0.8 percent.
In busy trade the FTSE 100 index ended up 28.34 points, or 0.5 percent, at 5,896.25, having on Thursday reached its lowest closing level in five weeks. The index still closed more than 40 points below its high for the day, with volume at 145 percent of the average of the last 90 trading days.
"A lot of short-term traders who bought in this morning after the sharp recent sell-off have achieved their aims and sold up," said Ed Woolfitt, head of trading at Galvan. He added that technical indicators looked fairly supportive for the index as the relative strength index had just turned positive.
Some of the shares that were hardest hit in the sell-off this week were the strongest gainers, such as Weir Group, which bounced 2.2 percent. Search software firm Autonomy gained 3.9 percent, helped by news of two licence deals for its Intelligent Data Operating Layer product. Energy shares provided the bulk of the gains for the blue chip index, with BG Group up 1.1 percent and Royal Dutch Shell up 1.3 percent, supported by new "buy" recommendations from Investec Securities.
Miners also recovered following recent sharp falls after soaring growth data from China raised fears of further interest rate rises from the world's biggest consumer of raw materials. Xstrata and platinum miner Lonmin added 1 and 0.5 percent, respectively.
Among the fallers, luxury goods group Burberry shed 1.3 percent, extending Thursday's falls on worries over the impact of any Chinese rate rise on its key Asian markets. On the domestic front, British retail sales suffered their worst December after a sharp fall in sales of food and fuel due to harsh weather and rising prices, the Office for National Statistics said.
Solid figures from conglomerate General Electric helped US shares rise, but disappointing results from Bank of America kept the gains in check. Investors will now look to data next week for clues on the direction of the market. "The UK preliminary Q4 GDP reading (on Tuesday) and MPC meeting minutes (on Thursday) are both due next week, and there's certainly scope here for some surprises," said Ben Critchley, Sales Trader, IG Index. "As such, the cheery mood may not last, but now that a sizeable chunk of yesterday's losses have now been recovered, the outlook is certainly a little brighter."
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