NEWS of a 100p a share special dividend from National Power, plus good gains in gilts and growing takeover speculation in a number of sectors took the FTSE 100 index sharply higher at the close of a busy trading day.
Adding to a generally buoyant feeling across the market yesterday was a super confident start on Wall Street, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average came within a whisker of its previous closing high, 5,689.74 before slipping back and then staging another determined run at the record.
The FTSE 100 index closed only fractionally below the day's high, but was still up 36.0 on the day at 3,789.6, a rise of almost 1 per cent. The strength in the leaders spilled over into the second liners where the FTSE Mid-250 index rose 19.6 to 4,513.4.
Yesterday's rise left Footsie up 35.2 over the five day period and helped the Mid 250 revive sufficiently to end the week up 0.6.
A higher than expected public sector borrowing requirement for April caused some uneasiness among economists but had little impact on gilts in the market place. The 10 year gilt closed 14 ticks up on the session, taking the yield below 8 per cent and the 20 year issue up 21 ticks.
Banks and insurances provided eight of Footsie's top ten performers.
