Markets: FTSE 100 ends the week on a low

published 20 July 2015

FTSE 100 up 0.6% at 6,775
Gold down 0.35% to $1,145.40
£/$ - 1.5609

Royal Mail was the biggest faller of the day, down 3.5% after Ofcom announced it was to investigate its dominance of the market. And precious metals miners tracked the price of gold lower, with Randgold down 2%, and Fresnillo 1.6% lower.

Travel stocks were in demand, however, with Easyjet, International Consolidated Airlines and TUI adding between 1.8% and 1.5%.

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In Europe's markets yesterday, the Paris CAC 40 rose 0.1% to 5,124, and the German Xetra Dax was 0.7% lower at 11,637.

In the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.2% to 18,086, the S&P 500 added 0.1% to 2,126, and the Nasdaq Composite was 0.9% higher at 5,210.

In Japan, markets were closed for public holiday. And in China, the CSI 300 rose 0.2% to 4,160, and the Shanghai Composite added 0.9% to 3,992.

Brent spot was trading at $56.97 early today, and in New York, crude oil was at $50.80. Spot gold was trading at $1,117 an ounce, silver was at $14.84 and platinum was at $982.

In the forex markets this morning, sterling was trading against the US dollar at 1.5604 and against the euro at 1.4367. The dollar was trading at 0.9207 against the euro and 124.14 against the Japanese yen.

And in the UK, software engineering group Aveva is to be the subject of a reverse takeover' by France's Schneider Electric, which will see Aveva buy Schneider's software division, and Schneider which bought engineering group Invensys for £3.4bn in 2013 take a 53.5% stake in Aveva.