FTSE 100 up 1.15%

Friday 4th September 2009

The FTSE 100 closed at the end of the week with gains pushing the index up over one per cent.

At close of play, the index stood at 4,851.70 – a gain of 54.95 points or 1.15 per cent.

Over the shortened week as a whole, however, the FTSE 100 dropped 1.36 per cent.

Platinum producer Lonmin led the gains rising 9.43 per cent – after notes from RBC Capital Markets and Exane BNP Paribas stated the firm could be a takeover target for Xstrata, after prospects for Xstrata's merger with Anglo American seemed to cool.

Schroders non-voting stock rose 5.47 per cent, Invensys gained 4.34 per cent, Schroders voting was up 4.22 per cent and Legal & General gained 4.19 per cent.

Royal Dutch Shell b was down 0.73 per cent, Morrisons slinked back from recent gains by 0.70 per cent and AstraZeneca followed suit dropping 0.61 per cent.

Philip Gillet, sales trader at IG Index, explained UK traders were buoyed today yesterday's US jobs figures.

"Jobs are still being lost in the USA, but at a slower rate than the market was anticipating," he said.

"The sell-off earlier in the week does look like just a correction for now and the past couple of days have seen a chunk of the losses won back.

"The recovery for UK stocks still looks to be intact and 5,000 remains the next obvious target for the FTSE 100 when traders return next week."

In the US, the Dow Jones maintained its late surge last night.

At 11:44 EDT (16:44 BST), the index was up 0.23 per cent to 9,9365.69 – with most notable gains for General Electric, Walt Disney and Bank of America.

In Germany, the Dax ended the week up 1.26 per cent and the Cac40 in Paris was up 0.85 per cent.

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