FTSE makes early gains

The FTSE 100 Index held on to early gains today as trading wound down ahead of the festive break.

A 200-point advance for Wall Street’s Dow Jones Industrial Average late on Friday gave the Footsie a lift in a shortened Christmas Eve session.

By mid-morning, the benchmark index was 27.2 points ahead at 6461.3 on a slow day for corporate news.

Investors showed some seasonal goodwill to banking and housebuilding stocks hard-hit in recent turmoil, while heavily-weighted mining firms also made advances.

The Footsie was led higher by new arrival Tui Travel, with the Thomson holiday operator up more than 4%, or 12.75p, to 296.5p on its first day of trading in the top flight following last week’s reshuffle.

There were gains for Barclays, up 13p to 517.5p, and Royal Bank of Scotland, which cheered 9p to 444.5p, while among mining stocks, Antofagasta was the leading performer. In a sector buoyed by metal prices consolidation hopes, the copper miner was 16p ahead at 730.5p, a gain of more than 2%.

Housebuilder Persimmon also featured among the risers despite property group Hometrack’s latest monthly survey reporting a 0.3% fall in average house prices in December. The stock was 17p up at 782p.

The biggest Footsie faller was pubs group Enterprise Inns, down 15p at 481p. The stock turned ex-dividend, meaning shareholders are not entitled to the latest dividend payout. Telecoms group BT, another ex-div, was down 1p to 274.75p.

Most of the action came in the FTSE 250, where UK Coal had previously gained more than 20% on rumours of a bid from a Vienna investment fund. A statement later from the firm dampened the speculation but UK Coal was still 14% ahead, or 53.25p, at 435.75p

The leading second-tier faller was Carpetright, after the founder of the business, Lord Harris, abandoned his potential takeover due to funding issues late on Friday.

The stock followed its 18% tumble in the previous session with another 7% fall today. Shares were off 62p at 818p.