Daily Spread Betting and Financial Market Commentary
Spread betting: financial markets commentaryAs at Market close on April 02, 2008
The US markets took a breather following the barn-storming rallies seen on Tuesday. The equity markets were largely unchanged for the most part with a range of 0.06% to 0.38% for declines across the major indices.
The Dow was the laggard with a move lower of 0.38% (48.53 spreadbetting points) to finish the session at 12605.83. That leaves the Dow up 389.43 points up for the week so far—a gain of 3.19%.
Technology stocks retained their market leadership, with the Nasdaq Composite Index falling the least among the major indices. The Nasdaq Composite was down 0.06% (-1.35 points), trimming the week’s gains to 100.22 points (4.43%). The S&P 500 Composite lost 0.19% (-2.65) to close at 1367.53 for the session, leaving the total gains for the week to date at 3.98%—52.31 points.
Traders in London ignored the mild weakness on Wall Street to push the Footsie to a one-month high during Wednesday’s session. The UK’s FTSE 100 finished at 5,915.90 for a gain of 1.08%. Financials topped the leader board on the main market as the sector continued to rally following positive news on the credit front.
Mid-cap stocks underperformed the larger caps as the FTSE 250 only managed a gain of +0.35% to end at 10,372.00. The techMARK index was 1.74% better off to close at 1,415.76 for the day.
The main leaders and losers among the stocks on the London Stock Exchange are noted below:
FTSE 100 - winnersOld Mutual [+6.21%]Royal Bank of Scotland [+5.68%] Barclays [+5.00%] Schroders [+4.78%] London Stock Exchange [+3.98%] FTSE 100 - losersSevern Trent [-3.68%]Amec [-3.55%] Carphone Warehouse Group [-2.90%] Tullow Oil [-2.52%] Imperial Tobacco Group [-2.14%]
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