Markets: FTSE 100 ends a positive week on a high

• FTSE 100 up 0.1% to 6,334
• Gold down 0.4% to 1,077.88/oz
• £/$ - 1.5191

FTSE 100

Royal Mail was the day's highest climber, up 2.5%. Insurer Old Mutual gained 2.4% and Rolls-Royce added 2%. It was a bad day for banks, however, with Barclays the biggest faller with a a3.5% slide. Lloyds lost 2.1% and RBS was 1.8% lower.

In Europe, the Paris CAC 40 slipped 0.1% to 4,910, and the German Xetra Dax added 0.3% to 11,119.

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In the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5% to 17,823, the S&P 500 gained 0.3% to 2,089, and the Nasdaq Composite was 0.6% higher at 5,104.

Japan's markets were closed for a public holiday. And in China, the CSI 300 and the Shanghai Composite each fell 0.6% to 3,753 and 3,610 respectively.

Brent spot was trading at $43.85 early today, and in New York, crude oil was at $40.62. Spot gold was trading at $1,072 an ounce, silver was at $14.04 and platinum was at $847.

In the forex markets this morning, sterling was trading against the US dollar at 1.5164 and against the euro at 1.4260. The dollar was trading at 0.9403 against the euro and 123.13 against the Japanese yen.

And today, as part of its programme selling "non-core" products, pharmaceuticals firm AstraZeneca says it has sold the rights to its Crohn's disease medication in the US which has racked up sales of £59m so far this year to Perrigo for £250m.