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* Analysts warn on rebound despite upbeat China data
* Imperial Brands surges as its sets up credit lines
* Aston Martin slides on furloughing some employees
(Updates with closing price)
By Sruthi Shankar and Devik Jain
March 31 (Reuters) - Britain's top share index ended its
worst quarter since 1987 on a positive note on Tuesday, as a
recovery in oil prices and a surprise expansion in Chinese
factory activity stoked modest hopes for an economic recovery.
The FTSE 100 index rose 2%, with cigarette maker
Imperial Brands surging 12.3% as it secured a new credit
line and said it was not seeing any major hit to business from
the coronavirus pandemic.
Oil prices steadied following a near collapse on Monday, as
U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin
agreed to discuss stabilising energy markets, boosting Royal
Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc by more than 6%.
Investors took cheer from data that showed China's activity
unexpectedly expanded in March from a collapse the month before,
even as analysts caution that a durable near-term recovery is
far from assured.
"What we're really looking at the China data is to see if
it's an indicator of how quickly Europe and the U.S. can get
back to work potentially after their lockdown," said UBS
strategist Kiran Ganesh.
"If the lockdown ends in May, which is what we're broadly
pricing in, then we may see a similar path of what we've seen in
China."
The FTSE 100 has shed a quarter of its value so far this
year, despite recovering more than 15% from mid-March lows as
most countries enforced stay-at-home orders to curb the
coronavirus pandemic, halting business activity.
Latest numbers showed the death toll in England from the
coronavirus outbreak rose 29% to 1,651.
Britain's midcap stocks recorded their worst
quarterly decline ever, although sentiment has stabilised
towards the end of March after unprecedented stimulus by
policymakers to cushion the pandemic's economic blow.
The index rose 3.3% on Tuesday, still down more than
30% so far in 2020.
"This is the calm before the storm," Mazen Issa, a
strategist at TD Securities wrote in a client note.
"Economic data this week will capture the early stages of a
collapse. That, alongside no earnings guidance could spell
trouble for risk assets."
Luxury carmaker Aston Martin fell 12.3% after saying
it is furloughing some employees as it handles the fallout from
the outbreak.
Travel stocks have also been hit hard in the past month as
passenger demand evaporated, with the wider travel and leisure
index losing 45% in the first quarter.
Supermarket chains Tesco and Sainsbury's
have held up as industry data showed British consumers spent an
additional 1.9 billion pounds ($2.4 billion) on groceries in the
four weeks to March 21.
Technology firm Smiths Group rose about 10% after
saying it was looking at cutting costs and that it should be
eligible to access funding from the Bank of England's Covid
Corporate Finance Facility.
(Reporting by Devik Jain and Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru;
Editing by Bernard Orr and Catherine Evans)
