On Thursday’s close, the FTSE 100 was 41.12 points higher at 7,004.10.
The index finished on the day’s high following the early low of 6,995.99.
“Stocks have rebounded as solid corporate earnings and a lack of negative news prompted dealers to snap up cheap stocks,” said David Madden, market analyst at CMC Markets UK.
“The mood has lightened on Wall Street, but we have seen bounce backs before, and seeing as interest rate hike fears, and geopolitical tensions still persist, the upward move may not last.”
WPP – shares fall 22%.
One of the biggest fallers of the day was WPP (LON: WPP), where shares tumbled over 22% on Thursday after reporting a fall in sales.
The advertising group reported a 1.5% fall in net sales for the third quarter when it was expected to reach a 0.3% growth.
The fall in sales led to almost £3 billion being wiped off the group’s market value.
“Clearly we have underperformed our competition in the third quarter,” said Mark Read, WPP’s new chief executive. “We are not going to sugarcoat the reality.”
BT – shares down 4%
BT (LON: BT.A) also held back the FTSE 100 on Thursday after the group confirmed its new chief executive, Philip Jansen.
Shares in the telecoms group have fallen 8% since the beginning of the year.
Shares are down to 237.9p.
Lloyds Banking Group – shares up 2%
Shares in the lender (LON: LLOY) are up 2.1% to 57.9p.
Investors welcomed the news that the chief financial officer George Culmer is stepping down after the group reported a 7% drop in pre-tax profit for the third quarter.
Interactive investor’s head of markets, Richard Hunter, said: “Despite a slip in profits for the period, in the year to date pre-tax profit is above consensus, having risen 10%, and the post-tax number is up 18%”
Top riser of the day was Chilean copper miner Antofagasta PLC (LON:ANTO), which was up almost 4% to 753.8p after recovering from Wednesday’s losses.
