(Reuters) -London’s FTSE 100 scaled a fresh intraday record peak on Friday, led by gains in financials and miners, as growing expectations for a Federal Reserve interest rate cut buoyed sentiment across global markets.
The blue-chip index was up 0.6% as of 0936 GMT. It is on track for a 2% weekly rise, its biggest jump since April.
The mid-cap index rose 0.7%, heading towards a 2.4% weekly gain.
Financial stocks emerged as the standout performers across both indexes, with the banking sector climbing 1.4% and investment banking shares surging 1.3%.
Precious metal miners Fresnillo and Endeavour Mining were among the FTSE 100’s top performers, gaining over 2% each due to rising gold prices.
While, the benchmark hit an intraday peak on Thursday, it ultimately surrendered gains to finish in negative territory.
The blue-chip index’s relative lack of technology exposure meant the market could not fully capitalize on the tech-driven rally that propelled U.S. stocks to fresh highs in the previous session.
Meanwhile, with the U.S. government shutdown continuing, the highly anticipated jobs report, originally scheduled for Friday, is now unlikely to be released.
Traders are now pricing in an almost certain Fed rate cut later this month, following disappointing private payrolls data earlier this week.
Back home, a survey showed British business activity grew at the slowest pace in five months in September as companies and consumers put big spending decisions on hold, waiting to see if they would be hit by higher taxes in November’s budget.
Economists believe that Finance Minister Rachel Reeves will need to implement tax hikes or reduce spending in the upcoming annual budget.
Among individual stocks, pub group J D Wetherspoon fell 4.7%, placing it at the bottom of the mid-cap index after flagging higher costs due to potential tax increases and national insurance contributions.
Technical products and services distributor Diploma gained 2.6% after brokerage firm RBC raised its rating to “outperform” from “underperform”.
(Reporting by Ragini Mathur in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema)
