British banks boosted blue-chip shares in London after most of them passed stress tests, with two notable exceptions.
Shares in all the listed banks that passed the Bank of England (BoE) tests rose, including HSBC (LON:HSBA) up 6.4p to 535.9p, Barclays (LON:BARC) rising 6.2p to 229.4p and Lloyds Banking Group (LON:LLOY) gaining 1.9p to 74.86p.
Royal Bank of Scotland (LON:RBS) and Standard Chartered (LON:STAN) were also up, increasing 9.1p to 311.5p and 10.4p to 567.6p respectively, despite failing to meet all the test targets.
RBS is still majority-owned by the British state following a taxpayer bailout following the 2008 financial crash and Standard's new chief executive is bidding to revive the group following problems.
Both RBS and Standard said they had taken steps to bolster their balance sheets, allowing them to avoid any corrective action by the BoE.
The rises lifted the FTSE 100 Index by 29.8 points to 6385.89 in early London trading.
Markets in France and Germany were down despite a eurozone purchasing managers index (PMI) survey showing that manufacturing in the single currency area improved for the second month in a row in November.
A similar survey for the UK contained less upbeat news, showing the manufacturing PMI fell to 52.7 in November from 55.2, below the consensus of 53.6.
Back in the markets, Topps Tiles (LON:TPT) rose slightly by 0.25p to 163p after reporting higher annual profits and a good start to this financial year.
Theme park operator Merlin Entertainments (LON:MERL) advanced 4.6p to 413.8p after saying a Halloween upturn at Alton Towers had helped to keep it on track to hit annual targets.
Condor Gold (LON:CNR) gleamed 2p to 31.5p on news that it had applied for an environmental permit for an open pit mine and associated infrastructure at its La India project in Nicaragua.
MARKET PREVIEW
London’s blue chip stocks look set to open Tuesday on the up, taking their lead from markets in Asia.
Japanese capital expenditure numbers came in far better than expected and cast doubt on whether the country genuinely entered a technical recession in the third quarter.
The Nikkei 225 climbed 265 points, or 1.3%, to 20,012 as capex grew 11.2%, the fastest year-on-year growth since 2007.
Elsewhere, Angus Nicholson at IG said: “Fears that China’s monetary easing and fiscal spending have not done enough to prop up the economy have only increased in the wake of today’s PMI release.
The Shanghai Composite struggled as a result, down 15 points or 0.5% to 3,430.
Back in the UK, the FTSE 100 is expected to open around 40 points to the good at around 6,390 according to the spread-betters.
Alton Towers and Legoland owner Merlin Entertainments provides its full year trading update on Tuesday.
The announcement, as with its September nine month update, is likely to see its June Alton Towers accident continuing to overshadow.
Elsewhere, Topps Tiles will report and investors will be keen to see if the company has managed its target of achieving one third of the market share by the end of the year.
Broker Liberum Capital is expecting full-year sales of around £213mln with like-for-like sales roughly 5% ahead of the previous year.