Blue chips in London closed up sharply on Thursday, after hitting a new record peak on commodity price strength and well received trading updates.
The FTSE 100 index closed up 63.57 points, 0.7%, at 9,578.57. It had earlier established a new best level of 9,594.82.
The FTSE 250 ended 131.62 points higher, 0.6%, at 22,361.41 and the AIM All-Share advanced 7.26 points, 1.0%, at 775.29.
Boosting London’s lead index, there were gains in commodity prices with oil and gold moving ahead strongly.
Oil majors Shell and BP climbed 2.9% and 3.7%, respectively, as Brent crude surged.
Brent oil traded at 65.75 US dollars a barrel, up from 62.61 dollars late on Wednesday.
The rise followed co-ordinated US-EU sanctions aimed at cutting off Russian oil revenues.
Smaller energy producers tracked the move higher, with Tullow Oil jumping 7.4% and Harbour Energy up 5.1%.
US President Donald Trump said the sanctions would target Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia’s two largest oil companies, after talks with Vladimir Putin “went nowhere”.
He described the measures as “tremendous”, but said he hoped they would be short-lived, adding: “We hope that the war will be settled.”
The move was joined by another round of punishments by the EU as part of attempts to pressure Moscow to end its three-and-a-half-year invasion of Ukraine.
“These new sanctions are likely to have a real impact,” said Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, an analyst at Global Risk Management.
But Bridget Payne, analyst at Oxford Economics, expects any oil price strength to be limited.
“This is a significant escalation, but it doesn’t remove barrels from the market. It might add a modest risk premium if banks comply strictly, but any rally is likely to be limited by the surplus outlook,” Ms Payne wrote.
She expects the impact to fall mainly on Russian revenues rather than global supply.
Meanwhile, gold continued its roller-coaster week. The yellow metal traded at 4,146.49 dollars an ounce on Thursday, up from 4,028.64 dollars on Wednesday.
This saw Fresnillo rise 5.3% and Endeavour Mining jump 3.0%.
The price of gold fell sharply on Tuesday and Wednesday after recent strong gains.
Analysts at Goldman Sachs wrote: “While a correction in speculative upside call options structures likely contributed to the selloff; we believe sticky, structural buying will continue further, and still see upside risk to our 4,900 dollar end-2026 forecast from growing interest in gold as a strategic portfolio diversifier.”
Trading news also gave the FTSE 100 a leg up on a busy day of updates, with Rentokil Initial soaring 8.3% and London Stock Exchange Group jumping 7.2%.
Rentokil’s gains came as it reported improved trading in its North American business, fuelling optimism that plans to turn around the unit are working.
The Crawley, West Sussex pest control and hygiene services business said revenue rose 4.6% at constant currency to 1.81 billion dollars (£1.36 billion) in the three months to September from 1.72 billion dollars (£1.29 billion) the year prior. Organic sales growth was 3.4%, picking up speed from 1.6% in the second quarter of 2025.
Revenue growth in North America was 4.6% with organic revenue growth of 3.4%. That organic sales growth represented an improvement from 1.4% in the second quarter and was ahead of 1.8% consensus.
RBC Capital Markets said: “We believe this statement highlights that Rentokil is slowly getting back on track and heading in the right direction. For patient investors, we continue to see Rentokil’s issues as fixable and see significant re-rating potential over time.”
London Stock Exchange climbed as it raised margin guidance after a strong third-quarter driven by growth across the business, led by Risk Intelligence and FTSE Russell indices.
LSEG also announced a £1 billion share buyback and a deal with 11 major banks for its Post Trade division.
The pound was quoted lower at 1.3323 US dollars at the time of the London equity market close on Thursday, compared to 1.3366 dollars on Wednesday.
The euro stood at 1.1609 dollars, down slightly compared to 1.1610 dollars. Against the Japanese yen, the dollar was trading at 152.71 yen, higher compared to 151.78 yen.
In Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris ended 0.2% higher, as did the DAX 40 in Frankfurt.
Stocks in New York were higher at the time of the London close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.1%, the S&P 500 was 0.3% higher, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.6%.
The yield on the US 10-year Treasury was quoted at 4.00%, widened from 3.96% on Wednesday. The yield on the US 30-year Treasury stood at 4.58%, up from 4.55% on Wednesday.
Back in London, Unilever rose 0.8% after reaffirming its annual guidance and forecasting faster growth in the second half of the year despite challenging market conditions.
Underlying sales, however, rose 3.9%, amid a 1.5% boost from volumes and a 2.4% advance in price. Underlying sales beat the company-compiled consensus of 3.7% growth.
Barclays said the beat was “powered by a standout” 5.5% in North America, which “absolutely stole the show”.
On the FTSE 250, trading updates provided a boost for Hunting, up 6.1%, Molten Ventures, up 15%, but held back AJ Bell, down 2.5% and Renishaw, down 2.3%.
AJ Bell chief executive Michael Summergill said budget uncertainty is causing disruption.
“Speculation over pension taxation ahead of the November budget, which has developed in the absence of a clear and lasting government commitment to pension tax stability, creates damaging uncertainty for customers and advisers,” he said.
WH Smith was knocked back 1.0% as Barclays downgraded to “equal weight” from “overweight”.
Ahead of the outcome of the Deloitte review into WH Smith’s US business, Barclays said there are “too many unknowns to take a strong view”.
“Our perspective is that we lack the necessary information to form a clear view of the likely path for profits, which makes it difficult for us to retain conviction in an overweight rating.
“In addition, there are many other consumer-facing stocks in our coverage universe trading at multiples similar to or below this multiple,” the broker said.
The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were: Rentokil Initial, up 33.9 pence at 441.2p; London Stock Exchange Group, up 626.0p at 9,346.0p; Fresnillo, up 110.0p at 2,190.0p; BP, up 15.55p at 436.95p; and Endeavour Mining, up 92.0p at 3,142.0p.
The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were: easyJet, down 13.8p at 479.5p; Ashtead, down 138.0p at 5,292.0p; Schroders, down 7.0p at 372.0p; Relx, down 60.0p at 3,448.0p; and St James’s Place, down 22.0p at 1,331.0p.
Friday’s global economic diary has US CPI data, a slew of flash composite PMI readings, plus US retail sales and consumer confidence reports.
Friday’s UK corporate calendar has third quarter results from lender NatWest.
Contributed by Alliance News