FTSE climbs to record closing high as Standard Chartered surges

By Sudip Kar-Gupta LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's top equity index hit a record closing high on Thursday, helped by a surge in the share price of the Asian-focused bank Standard Chartered . Standard Chartered advanced by 5.4 percent as traders welcomed its appointment of a new chief executive, former JPMorgan investment bank boss Bill Winters. "We are pleased with the announcement of Bill Winters. He is well respected and with management looking to bring back more focus on the core business, we think this will please investors," said Atif Latif, director of trading at Guardian Stockbrokers. Standard Chartered gave one of the biggest lifts to the FTSE 100 <.FTSE>, which ended 0.2 percent higher at 6,949.73 points -- a new closing high and near the intraday record high of 6,958.89 points it reached on Tuesday. Charles Hepworth, investment director at GAM, said the approach of Britain's general elections in May could hinder the FTSE, but he still thinks it could easily exceed 7,000 points. "On a technical perspective, I am optimistic that the market can make further gains from here with the FTSE 100 trading towards an upper range of 7,500, and this level possibly being met sometime during 2015," he said. RBS AND RSA FALL Not all UK companies rode the wave of the rising stock market. Reed Elsevier fell 4.8 percent, making it the worst-performing FTSE stock in percentage terms. The company reported 2014 results in line with forecasts, predicted further growth for 2015 and announced plans for a 500 million-pound share buyback. But analysts questioned whether the performance could sustain its strong stock rally. The shares have climbed more than 100 percent since 2012. Others also noted the buyback was down from last year's 600 million-pound figure. "When a stock has risen by as much as Reed, there will always be room for disappointment if the figures do not beat forecasts, and traders will be looking to sell out and cash in on the rally," said Central Markets trading analyst Joe Neighbour. Insurer RSA fell 4.7 percent. Even though RSA swung back into a profit for 2014, its results were below forecasts. So was a modest 2 pence final dividend payment. Royal Bank of Scotland also slid 4.1 percent. The bank posted a 2014 loss of 3.5 billion pounds and announced plans to shrink its investment banking operations to allow the state-controlled lender to refocus on local lending in Britain. "RBS is just going to get bashed and bashed and bashed. Although the figures read OK, they've still got some structural issues," said Joe Rundle, head of trading at ETX Capital. (Additional reporting by Alistair Smout; Editing by Larry King)