FTSE 100 Rises On Upbeat Earnings

(RTTNews) - U.K. stocks traded higher on Tuesday as investors cheered impressive earnings updates from the likes of HSBC and Hargreaves.

Traders also welcomed data from the Bank of England showing that the number of mortgages approved by British lenders rose to an 18-month high in March.

The benchmark FTSE 100 was up 36 points, or 0.4 percent, at 8,182 after ending flat with a positive bias on Monday.

HSBC Holdings jumped 3.6 percent after the bank said it would shortly begin buying back an additional $3 billion of its shares.

Glencore fell about 1 percent after reporting declines in first-quarter copper and coal output.

Prudential slumped 5 percent after the insurer's annual premium equivalent sales for CITIC Prudential Life, its Chinese Mainland JV, fell 17 percent in Q1.

Premier Inn owner Whitbread rallied 2.8 percent after it announced plans to axe around 1,500 U.K. jobs.

Hargreaves Lansdown surged 5.7 percent. The financial services business revealed its AuM levels increased by £7.5billion to a record £149.7billion between January and the end of March.