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London afternoon: FTSE 100 clings on to gains

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Date: Friday 24 Jan 2003

  • .FTSE 100 3650.20 +0.77%
  • FTSE 250 4243.70 -0.07%
  • techMARK 716.72 +0.27%

LONDON (ShareCast) - Investors are having a roller-coaster ride as the London blue chips try to end the record run of nine down days in a row.

Economic new gave no support as the latest statistics for the state of the economy showed it had slowed to its lowest growth rate for a decade at 1.7% in 2002. GDP growth in the fourth quarter slowed to 0.4%.

Financials spurred the market forward with both life assurers and banks having a rare good day.

Lloyds TSB got a leg up from a note by Goldman Sachs suggesting it would not cut the dividend and would not need to unless FTSE 100 went all the way down to 3,250 despite the problems at its Scottish Widows subsidiary.

Legal & General has much the same problems but it is not going down without a fight. Sales last year rose by 13% and more importantly, perhaps, it quantified the extra costs of men living longer at £140m. Prudential and Aviva rose with it.

Fund managers also rallied with the market. Amvescap topped the list of FTSE 100 winners by mid -morning. It is especially geared to the US market.

GlaxoSmithKline dropped a study into its Serevent asthma treatment after some patients died. Sage rose after the good performance of technology shares overnight in the US.

Whittard of Chelsea and jewellery maker Abbeycrest responded to good figures.

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