FTSE lags continental peers amid commodity selloff

By Francesco Canepa LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's top share index closed at a fresh four-month high on Monday, helped by a rebound in energy shares, although hefty falls in Greece-exposed Coca-Cola HBC capped gains. Heavyweight oil & gas majors BP , BG and Shell rebounded sharply in the afternoon after the secretary-general of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Abdullah al-Badri, said he thought crude prices may have reached their bottom. Crude prices also bounced off their early lows, with benchmark WTI front-end contracts having dropped to near their lowest since April 2009. [O/R] Energy shares added 15 points to the FTSE 100 <.FTSE>, which closed 19.57 points higher, or 0.3 percent, at 6,852.40 points, having traded as low as 6,790 earlier in the day. The index had last week recorded its biggest weekly rise in three years, mirroring broad gains across Europe as the European Central Bank unveiled a bond-buying programme to stimulate the euro zone economy. While UK blue chips, which generate about a quarter of their revenues from continental Europe, will also benefit from the ECB's stimulus, the FTSE, with its heavy exposure to commodities, is seen as a possible underperformer if oil and copper prices remain depressed. The UK index is up roughly 4 percent so far this year, or roughly half as much as the euro zone Euro STOXX 50 index <.STOXX50E>. "If you’re looking for growth, you’re going to find it in small-caps (in) Europe and in the U.S. and not in this commodity-sub-index which is the FTSE 100," said Chris Beauchamp, a strategist at spread better IG. Coca-Cola HBC , for which Greece is a significant market, fell 3.2 percent in hefty volume as the success of anti-bailout party Syriza in the Greek parliamentary election reignited the prospect of renewed financial upheaval. The broader fallout of any Greek financial turmoil on international equity markets was muted, however, thanks to "firewalls", such as the euro zone bailout fund, built following the euro zone debt crisis. "We think that it will have minimal impact," Gerard Lane, equity strategist at Shore Capital, said. (Additional reporting by Atul Prakash; Editing by Janet Lawrence)