FTSE 100 closes at new high
And finally, the UK’s blue-chip share index has ended the day at a new closing high.
The FTSE 100 has closed 87.75 points higher at 10,402 points, as investors continue to move into old-economy stocks as AI fears hit the software sector.
Gambling firm Entain (+10.4%) was the top riser, followed by services firm DSS (+7.8%) and then pharmaceuticals group GSK (+6.9%), which hit a 26-year high after reporting financial results this morning.
Beazley closed nearly 6.9% higher too, after Zurich Insurance reached an agreement on “key terms” of an £8bn takeover offer for the company.
But fallers included accountancy software firm Sage (-2.9%), as Anthropic’s launch of an AI legal tool continued to rattle data software companies across Europe, in the US and across Asia-Pacific markets (see opening post).
James Reilly, senior markets economist at Capital Economics, says:
We don’t think the falls suffered by software stocks in recent days are indicative of waning enthusiasm for AI. We think investors will continue to judge that the benefits accruing from AI will outweigh the costs, driving the stock market higher this year.
Here are today’s main stories:
Updated
Here’s a neat ‘chart of the day’ from Deutsche Bank this afternoon, showing the drawdowns from their 52-week highs for selected US tech and tech related stocks, and some private equity firms who have exposure.
There have been “some brutal moves”, points out Deutsche’s Jim Reid, adding:
An additional stand out is that the Mag 7 index as a whole is only about -1% off its peak, even though six of the seven names are down between -5 and -25%. The outlier, Alphabet, is up nearly +25% over the last three months and roughly +75% over the last six. That +75% translates into around $1.7 trillion in market value.
