UK stocks close higher as investors weigh corporate updates, US politics

Reuters

UK stocks close higher as investors weigh corporate updates, US politics

22. Jul. 2024 um 4:32 nachm. GMT

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FTSE 100 up 0.5%, FTSE 250 adds 0.3%

Rentokil surges after report of takeover interest

US economic data, corporate earnings on tap

Updated at 1559 GMT

July 22 (Reuters) - Britishstocks kicked off the week on a positive note following a slew of upbeatcorporate updates, while investors weighed the impact of U.S. President Joe Biden's decision to end his re-election campaign.

The blue-chip FTSE 100 index .FTSE closed up 0.5%, while the mid-cap FTSE 250 .FTMC gained 0.3%, with both the indexes rebounding from declines on Friday.

Major Wall Street indexes ticked higher as investors assessed the odds of a second term for Republican nominee Donald Trump in the Nov. 5 election after Biden withdrew from the race.

"If you were hoping for markets to come into the new week having shaken off a lot of last week's volatility - that's what you've got really," said Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG Group.

Most sub-sectors traded higher as the market recovered from the declines on Friday that were triggered by disappointing UK retail sales data and weaker commodity prices.

The release of U.S. gross domestic product and inflation data later this week could shed light on the Federal Reserve's monetary policy path, with investors also looking to earnings from Wall Street giants including Alphabet GOOGL.O and Tesla TSLA.O for market direction.

RentokilRTO.L surged 7.8% to the top of the FTSE 100 after a report said the former chief of BT Group BT.L, Philip Jansen, is working on a private equity-backed takeover bid for the pest-control firm.

Entain ENT.L climbed 1.8% after the sports betting and gaming group said Gavin Isaacs has beenappointed as its new CEO, effective on Sept. 2.

Putting pressure on the midcap index, WizzAir WIZZ.L slid 10% afterIrish peer Ryanair RYA.I missed quarterly profit estimates.

Ocado OCDO.L jumped 12.2% after the online supermarket and technology group said its U.S. partner Kroger KR.N had placed an order for a wide range of new automated technologies.

Reporting by Purvi Agarwal and Roshan Abraham in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun H K and Paul Simao

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