London stocks rise as coronavirus lockdowns begin to ease
By Sagarika Jaisinghani and Ambar Warrick
(Reuters) - London-listed shares ended higher on Monday as markets took heart from a scaling back of coronavirus restrictions, with consumer stocks among the best performers.
Associated British Foods <ABF.L> jumped 8% after its fashion brand Primark outlined plans to reopen all 153 of its stores in England on June 15.
The stock was among the best performers on the blue-chip FTSE 100 index <.FTSE>, which added about 1.5% for the day.
The domestically-sensitive mid-cap index <.FTMC> was up 1.4%, propped up by consumer discretionary stocks on hopes that the UK economy would rebound.
Both the bluechip and the midcap indexes had ended May on a downbeat note on fears of a strong U.S. response to China's move to impose a national security law in Hong Kong. But global equity markets rallied on Monday as U.S. President Donald Trump made no mention of pulling out of the Phase 1 trade deal while saying his administration would begin the process of eliminating special treatment for Hong Kong. [MKTS/GLOB]
"Re-opening optimism reigns supreme as markets have temporarily shelved the U.S.-China trade war escalation playbooks in favour of the bullish-for-market re-opening scripts," said Stephen Innes, markets strategist at Axicorp.
Shares of Standard Chartered PLC <STAN.L> and HSBC <HSBA.L> - banks with substantial operations in Hong Kong - rose about 8.7% and 2.6% respectively.
The FTSE 100 has recovered about 26% since crashing to an eight-year low in March, with battered travel <.FTNMX5750> and mining <.FTNMX1770> stocks posting some of the sharpest gains.
AstraZeneca <AZN.L> rose 1.4% after its and U.S. drugmaker Merck & Co Inc's <MRK.N> cancer drug received a positive recommendation from the European Medicines Agency as a maintenance treatment for a form of pancreatic cancer.
Fashion brand Ted Baker <TED.L> ended higher after it said it would raise 95 million pounds ($117.84 million) through a stock issue to help it ride out the coronavirus crisis, after reporting a loss of 79.9 million pounds for the year to January.
(Reporting by Sagarika Jaisinghani in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Andrew Heavens)