Though hardly a snogfest, the markets got a bit of a Valentine’s Day love-in from investors as the bell rang on Thursday.
A 0.2% increase was all it took for the FTSE to hit a fresh 4-month peak, the index crossing 7200 for the first time since mid-October as the lingering effects of the week’s trade war optimism continued to just about push Europe higher.
While its oil and mining stocks prevented the FTSE from really taking flight, a couple of its other constituents were willing to lend the index a helping hand. Getting high on its own supply, AstraZeneca (LON:AZN) rose 3.5% as the product sales recovery that began in Q3 – one that broke a 9 quarter losing streak – carried over into Q4; the firm is now targeting ‘a high single-digit percentage increase’ in product sales for 2019.
Even better was Micro Focus International (LON:MCRO). The software stock, which has been struggling to integrate the costly assets it bought from Hewlett-Packard a couple of years ago, shot up 10%, striking an 11-month high of £16.73 after it revealed a better-than-forecast, but admittedly still not great, 5.3% drop in full year pro-forma revenue.
Preparing for a day of Brexit debate in the Commons, the pound dipped 0.1% against both the dollar and the euro; that left cable at a one-month low of $1.2837, while leaving sterling back the wrong side of €1.14 against its single currency cousin.
Over in the Eurozone the region’s indices got off to a decent start despite news that Germany only barely avoided tripping into a technical recession in Q4. The DAX was back above 11200 as it climbed 0.4%, with the CAC piercing 5100 after jumping 0.6%.