FTSE 100 Recovers After Slight Setback, Up Marginally At Noon

(RTTNews) - After an early modest upmove, the U.K. market slipped into negative territory Friday morning, but recovered ground subsequently to emerge above the flat thanks to selective buying at a few frontline counters.

Data showing an increase in the nation's retail sales in the month of August is aiding sentiment a bit.

The benchmark FTSE 100 was up 9.28 points or 0.1% at 9,237.39 a few minutes past noon.

Croda International is gaining more than 3%. Endeavour Mining and Fresnillo are up 2.8% and 2.5%, respectively.

Next, GSK, Land Securities, Imperial Brands, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Kingfisher, Rolls-Royce Holdings and Sainsbury (J) are up 1 to 1.8%.

Vodafone Group is advancing by more than 1.5%. The telecom operator has agreed to acquire Telekom Romania Mobile Communications S.A. and its post-paid customer base for €30 million.

WPP, JD Sports Fashion, Natwest Group, Lloyds Banking Group, Ashtead Group, Airtel Africa, Auto Trader Group, Pearson, Diploma, Relx, ICG and Informa are down 1 to 2.7%.

IG Group Holdings Plc shares are down 2.5% after the company announced the acquisition of Independent Reserve, a leading cryptocurrency exchange based in Australia.

Close Brothers Group shares are down more than 6% after the lender delayed its preliminary 2025 results by a week.

Data from the Office for National Statistics showed UK retail sales increased for the third straight month in August, rising by 0.5%, from a month ago. This followed a similar revised 0.5% increase seen in July and outpaced economists' forecast of 0.4% gain.

Excluding auto fuel, growth in retail sales doubled to 0.8% from 0.4% in July and came in stronger than the forecast of 0.6%.

On a yearly basis, retail sales logged a growth of 0.7% in August, after rising 0.8% in the previous month. Excluding auto fuel, retail sales growth accelerated to 1.2% from 1% in July.