FTSE 100 Up Marginally; Standard Chartered Rises On Results

(RTTNews) - U.K. stocks are mostly subdued Friday morning with investors making largely cautious moves while digesting data on the nation's manufacturing and services sector activity as well a report on retail sales.

The benchmark FTSE 100 was up 13.20 points or 0.15% at 8,676.17.

Standard Chartered is gaining 4.5% after reporting its biggest earnings in a decade. The lender reported a net profit of $4.28 billion, with EPS rising to $1.41, well above forecasts. The bank, which attributed the strong performance to record growth in its wealth management division and robust market activity, has also announced a $1.5 billion share buyback.

Centrica is up 3.5%, extending recent gains. Diageo is rising 2.5%, while Sainsbury, Marks & Spencer, Natwest Group, Barclays Group, Convatec Group, Associated British Foods, BT and B&M European Value Retail are gaining 1.7 to 2%.

Ashtead Group, Kingfisher, RightMove, Croda International, Whitbread, Prudential, Next, Frasers Group, JD Sports Fashion, WPP and Hikma Pharmaceuticals are also notably higher.

GSK, Endeavour Mining, Fresnillo and Mondi are down 1.5 to 1.7%. BP, British American Tobacco, Relx, BAE Systems and Shell are down 0.8 to 1.2%.

In economic news, UK retail sales expanded at the fastest pace in eight months in January due to the rebound in food store sales volume, the Office for National Statistics said. Retail sales volume increased 1.7% in January from December, the report said.

This was the first increase in five months, the biggest growth in eight months and was also stronger than the expected increase of 0.4%.

On a yearly basis, retail sales growth softened to 1% in January from 2.8% in December. Economists had forecast sales to log a much weaker growth of 0.6%.

Elsewhere, survey data from the market research group GfK showed that British consumer sentiment rose moderately in February. The consumer sentiment index gained two points to -20.