It was a very quiet day for the markets on Monday as New York remained closed for Presidents’ Day and little news came out of London.
AstraZeneca was one of the best performers on the FTSE 100 as it revealed early successes in the trial of one of its drugs to treat lung cancer.
The drug giant’s jump helped lift the FTSE by 16.79 points, or 0.22%, to end the day at 7,728.5.
At the end of the day in Europe, Frankfurt’s Dax index fell 0.15%, while the Cac 40 in Paris had closed almost entirely flat. US markets were closed.
“The FTSE 100 has begun this week where it left off last week by outperforming its European peers during an extremely quiet session as US stock markets were closed for Presidents’ Day,” said Axel Rudolph, senior market analyst at online trading platform IG.
The cost of Brent crude oil hit 83.38 dollars per barrel, but the price for natural gas fell below 60p per therm on UK exchanges.
“The oil price has risen amid quiet trading as European natural gas futures prices fell to an eight-month low,” Mr Rudolph said.
On currency markets, the pound was trading 0.20% lower against the dollar at 1.2585 and had dropped 0.14% against the euro at 1.1686.
In company news, a raft of takeover interest drove Currys shares sharply higher during the session.
Over the weekend, the electronics retailer confirmed it rejected a roughly £700 million takeover move by Waterstones owner Elliott Advisors.
It added on Monday that it is also being eyed up by Chinese retail giant JD.com over a possible takeover, leading to speculation it could be the centre of a bidding war.
Shares closed up 36.36%.
AstraZeneca’s findings for the Tagrisso treatment in lung cancer patients, and the announcement that Tagrisso with chemotherapy had been approved by the US Food & Drug Administration for use in some cases, helped shares rise 2.6%.
Barclays climbed 1.56% higher ahead of the banking group’s annual results announcement, amid reports in The Times it plans to hand out as much as £9 billion to shareholders over the next three years.
Moneysupermarket Group slipped 1.70% lower despite higher profits, as it cautioned that the ramp-up in car premium costs started to stabilise towards the end of the year.
The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were Rolls-Royce, up 10.9p to 334.2p, AstraZeneca, up 324p to 10,418p, Vodafone, up 1.47p to 67.1p, Intercontinental Hotels Group, up 150p to 7,910p, and Segro, up 15.4p to 864.8p.
The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were Centrica, down 8.3p to 130.8p, Beazley, down 15p to 570p, Kingfisher, down 5p to 222.6p, Fresnillo, down 10p to 477.5p, and Natwest Group, down 4.5p to 225p.