World markets report

published 23 December 2009

The FTSE 100 closed up another 0.7% yesterday at 5,328, as defensive and energy stocks made good gains.

Pharmaceutical companies performed well, with GSK up 1.9% and AstraZeneca rising 1.8%; and among other defensive stocks, Unilever added 2% and Imperial Tobacco rose 1.8%.

Energy shares made modest gains despite a slip in the price of crude. Royal Dutch Shell climbed 2.3% and BP rose 1.1%. BG Group, however, fell 0.2%.

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Banks fared poorly overall. Although HSBC rose 0.1% and Lloyds was flat, Barclays fell 0.2% and RBS was 3% lower.

And mining stocks were among the day's poorest performers. Fresnillo lost 3.7%, Kazakhmys and Xstrata lost 1.2% and 1.1% respectively, but ENRC bucked the sector trend with a rise of 0.3%.

Read the latest stock market news and charts here.

Europe

In Europe, the Paris CAC 40 rose 26 points to 3,898; and the German Xetra Dax was 15 points higher at 5,946.

US

In the US, the Dow Jones climbed 0.5% to 10,464; the S&P 500 gained 0.4% to 1,118; and the Nasdaq Composite was 0.7% higher at 2,252.

Asia

In Japan, markets were closed. And in China, the Shanghai Composite index rose 0.8% to 3,073; and the CSI 300 closed up 0.9% at 3,336.

Commodities

Brent spot was trading at $72.90 early today, and in New York, crude oil was at $74.68. Spot gold was trading at $1,086 an ounce, silver was at $16.97 and platinum was at $1,395

Currencies

In the forex markets this morning, sterling was trading against the US dollar at 1.5939 and against the euro at 1.1189. The dollar was trading at 0.702 against the euro and 91.79 against the Japanese yen.

UK news

And in the UK, Britons are paying off their debt at a record pace. In the three months to September, families were saving an average of £300 a month, according to the Office of National Statistics.