Good morning from London where the FTSE 100 has flown out of the traps, erasing all of this week’s losses to return about 7,660 points.
The market has reacted positively to news from the ONS this morning that UK GDP grew by 0.2% during the second quarter and that manufacturing has been growing really well – car production up by around 16% on the year.
Staying with cars and Aston Martin shares are up this morning on news that Lawrence Stroll’s Yellow Tree Consortium has upped its majority stake in the luxury carmaker to more than 26%.
Severn Trent rose early as well, as the utility announced £1 billion worth of fundraising amid a plan to invest almost £13 billion to fix leaks and storm overflows between 2025 and 2030.
Also soaring was multimedia firm Future, which said it would overcome macroeconomic uncertainty to report full-year profits in line with expectations.
Deloitte is reporting an increase in revenue for the year and in small caps, IQGeo jumped after securing a multimillion-euro tender to license its software to a major European broadband operator.