LONDON, February 23: London stocks were buoyant in early trading Monday on prospects of new mergers and buy-outs and a good performance on Wall Street. The FT-SE 100 index of key shares was up 22.2 points from its Friday close at 5,774.4.In Paris, the CAC-40 index hit a record 3,315.09 points, a rise of two per cent, in early trading. In Frankfurt, the DAX index gained 40.05 points to 4,642.70 points.
In addition to the Dow Jones' rise of 38.36 points to 8,413.94 on Friday, London stocks were helped by rumours and reports of merger activity in the weekend press.
Barclays and Standard Chartered banks issued a denial Monday that they were discussing a merger.
But Barclays shares were nevertheless up one pence at 1,877 and Standard Chartered 16.5 pence at 781.
HSBC, whose assets include Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp (HSBC) and Midland Bank Plc, announced net profit of 42.55 billion Hong Kong dollars ($ 5.49 billion) in 1997, a 13.2 per cent rise over the previous year.HSBC shares in Londontraded up three pence at 1,676.
Another winner was British Aerospace (BAe), up 43 pence at 1,906, after British Airways (BA) announced that it would allow Airbus Industries - in which BAe has a stake - to compete with Boeing for a two-billion-pound order of planes.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
