The FTSE 100 opened today at 5773 where it quickly jumped above 5860. The index steadily increased throughout the day before closing up at 5900 (+2.19%). The last two days have seen some recovery after oil prices plummeted on the 20th January, at the time of writing, Brent oil is trading at $31.47 a barrel (+6.03%). Tullow Oil, a FTSE 250 company within Oil & Gas, has seen its share price recover significantly since then, up by over 24%, making gains of +14.40% in today’s trade as the share price stands at 147.8p. Other companies have benefitted from the surge in oil prices over the last two days as Ophir, Shell and BP all traded higher by +6.45%, +5.27% and 3.05% respectively. Although, the question remains, are we seeing a sustained recovery in oil prices or is it just a dead cat bounce?
In other news, the UK released its latest borrowing data. December’s figures showed the government borrowed £7.5bn during this period which is considerably lower than the same period in 2014 when borrowing stood at £11.7bn. However, last year’s figures were inflated by the £2.9bn payment which was made as a contribution to the European Union. December’s figure has brought the UK’s total borrowing figure to £74.2bn for the year which is already above the government’s target of £68.9bn for the fiscal year.
January tends to be a month where a surplus is seen as the majority of tax bills are paid by the end of the month. However economists doubt whether George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, will be able to meet his intended yearly target and some forecast that he could go over it by £10bn.
At the close, European indices were up with the FTSE 100 +2.19%, the CAC 40 +3.10%, and the DAX +1.99%. Asian indices also closed higher with the Hang Seng +2.90% and the Nikkei 225 +5.88%. At the time of writing, US indices were up with the NASDAQ +1.80%, the S&P 500 +1.39% and the Dow Jones +0.79%.