Wednesday, 19^th February: The sport luxe trend is still kicking about, but some of the leading brands in the market are opening up and adding to the growing list of companies raising sales concerns over coronavirus. On Wednesday, Adidas and Puma, both of which make circa one third of their sales in Asia, warned that the closure of some stores due to the virus was having a worrying impact on their businesses, as the region is also a main sourcing hub and major producer for both companies too.

Back in the UK, higher petrol prices and a less noticeable decline in airfares allowed for an unexpected increase in inflation to 1.8% in January, a six-month high and above the 1.6% forecast. Fuel prices were up 4.7% in comparison to the same time last year. Sterling was up circa 0.17% against the dollar at $1.3023 after the data was released and the blue-chip index was up around 50 points at the same time.

The FTSE continued to collect points throughout the afternoon following positive news from China regarding the new measures they were going to take to support the businesses struggling from the virus outbreak, which also allowed markets across the pond to open higher. The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq opened 0.3%, 0.25% and 0.54% higher respectively.

At the end of the day, the FTSE 100 was 1.02% higher at 7457.02 and the FTSE 250 was 0.80% higher at 21850.90.