(Alliance News) - Stock prices in London were staging a mild rebound on Tuesday following the latest version of 'Black Monday', amid hopes of financial relief in the US.
US President Donald Trump on Monday said his administration would be meeting with lawmakers to discuss economic relief measures to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus outbreak spreading through the US.
"We're going to be meeting with House Republicans, [Senate leader] Mitch McConnell, everybody, and discussing a possible payroll tax cut, or substantial relief," he said.
The FTSE 100 index was up 126.13 points, or 2.1%, at 6,091.90. The blue-chip index closed down 496.78 points, or 7.7%, at 5,965.77 on Monday. Stocks in the index had around GBP144 billion wiped off their value as the FTSE 100 closed below 6,000 points and suffered its biggest intraday fall since 2008.
The FTSE 250 was up 265.47 points, or 1.5%, at 17,812.62, and the AIM All-Share was up 9.78 points, or 1.2%, at 810.68.
The Cboe UK 100 index was up 0.9% at 10,247.20. The Cboe UK 250 was up 0.4% at 15,695.66, and the Cboe UK Small Companies was up 0.1% at 10,849.40.
In European equities, the CAC 40 in Paris was up 1.0% and the DAX 30 in Frankfurt up 0.8%.
Spreadex.com analyst Connor Campbell said: "There were a couple of things behind Europe's green start. Firstly, a fall as great as that seen on Monday is always going to attract a few vultures, swooping in to pick at the market's bloody carcass – remember, the global indices are now heavily discounted from the all-time highs struck just a month ago.
"Then there was Donald Trump, attempting to gee-up investors by suggesting he was preparing a 'major' economic relief package in the US, one that would potentially include a payroll tax cut and provisions to protect hourly workers. This likely gave further justification at those looking to enter the market at a potential bargain price."
The Japanese Nikkei 225 index closed up 0.9% o Tuesday. In China, the Shanghai Composite ended up 1.6%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong closed up 1.8%.
In the FTSE 100, Royal Dutch Shell 'A', Shell 'B' and BP were up 5.6%, 5.5% and 4.2%, respectively, following a stabilisation in oil markets. Shell is London's largest company by market capitalisation, while BP is the third largest.
Brent was quoted at USD36.27 a barrel Tuesday morning, flat from USD36.22 at the London close on Monday, though still down 21% from USD46.00 late Friday. Brent touched an intraday low of USD31.26 on Monday - its lowest level since early 2016 and suffered the biggest percentage drop since the Gulf War in 1991.
AVEVA Group - which makes software used in the oil and gas industry - was up 4.5% on Tuesday, having closed down 17% on Monday.
Informa was up 4.2% after the business events and publishing firm reported solid annual results.
For 2019, revenue rose 22% to GBP2.89 billion from GBP2.37 billion in 2018, and pretax profit was up 13% to GBP318.7 million from GBP282.1 million. Informa lifted its full-year dividend by 7.3% to 23.5 pence from 21.9p in 2018.
However, Informa said it will not give any market guidance for 2020, due to the uncertainty caused by the virus outbreak, as it has rescheduled or cancelled 128 event brands so far.
easyJet was up 4.0% after Bank of America upgraded the budget airline to Buy from Neutral, while Bernstein raised the stock to Outperform from Market Perform.
The pound was quoted at USD1.3081 early Tuesday, down from USD1.3119 at the London close Monday. The euro was quoted at USD1.1390, down from USD1.1462.
Against the yen, the dollar was quoted at USD104.66 Tuesday morning, up from JPY102.10 late Monday.
Gold was quoted at USD1,658.66 an ounce, down from USD1,668.05.
Chinese consumer inflation rose 5.2% on-year in February, slightly down from 5.4% the month before, which was the highest since October 2011. The reading was in line forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey.
The economic events calendar on Tuesday has eurozone fourth-quarter GDP readings at 1000 GMT.
By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com
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