Headline shares finish the day higher

END-OF-DAY-REPORT: Headline shares finished the day higher after consolidating gains during afternoon trading, buoyed by effervescent miners and a strong showing from BA.

At close, the FTSE 100 was up by 45.63 points at 5681.39, with the FTSE 250 was trading higher by 118.2 points at 10,800.2.

London markets consolidated gains and closed the day higher driven by miners’ reaction to favourable metal price movements.

Investors seeking to profit from the weakness of the US economy and the dollar have today pushed the price of gold to a second successive record high.

Gold has touched all-time highs in eight of the last 10 trading sessions.

Those shares finishing the day higher included Man Group, which was up 4.67% to 237.7p, closely followed by British Airways, buoyed by positive news from Easyjet.

On the downside were Autonomy which had a dire day, falling 16.25% to 1,551p.

Admiral saw losses of just under 4.5% to close down at 1,590p, with Centrica off by 1.59% at 321.8p.

SABMiller saw a fall of 1.41% to finish at 1,992p, with Sage also down on the day by 1.26% closing at 281.5p.

Johnson Matthey is to acquire Intercat, a leading supplier of fluid catalytic cracking additives and addition systems for the petroleum refining industry.

It will pay $56.2m. in cash, which is net of adjustments for debt of $29.4m.
Intercat’s technologies should strengthen Johnson Matthey’s position in the growing petroleum refining catalysts sector.

Lombard Medical Technologies has signed an agreement for the distribution of Aorfix in Japan.

To assist funding of various development projects, the Japanese partner has agreed to provide the Company with a loan facility of up to $5m.