BT has outlined a £6bn 3 year investment plan to bring in ultra-fast broadband to 12 million premises by 2020. Sky and other rivals have complained that BT should actually be investing more, and TalkTalk have accused BT of buying protection against competition by using the national infrastructure as a cash cow. Shares climbed in today’s trading for the telecoms giant after the release of Q4 results that showed revenue growth following the EE acquisition. Some analysts have highlighted lacklustre results on the TV side of the business, some perhaps expecting more after their acquisition to key rights and launching 4K live TV. BT topped the FTSE 100 today after shares closed 2.63% higher.

The FTSE only just put an end to the 3-day losing streak, finishing a tad higher (+0.09%). The London index was hurt today after disappointing service PMI added to a list of poor data for the UK this week. Data showed service PMI for April was 52.3, the slowest growth rate for 3 years in April (53.7 Mar ‘16). To reiterate, the trio of weak data reads from manufacturing, construction and services all likely point to the fact that the upcoming EU referendum is certainly taking its toll.

Checking in on the oil price and it was a slightly more positive session than in recent days, with the brent price up over 2% as we write, most mining firms enjoying a subtle bounce on the back of this, Anglo shares rising 1.77%, BHP were up 0.76% and Rio shares rose 0.59%.