FTSE 100 Edges Higher As China Eased Virus Curbs
(RTTNews) - U.K. stocks edged up slightly on Wednesday after China announced easing of its strict COVID curbs.
The benchmark FTSE 100 was up 21 points, or 0.3 percent, at 7,542 after declining 0.6 percent in the previous session.
Miners Anglo American, Antofagasta and Glencore fell 1-2 percent after data showed China's exports and imports both shrank to their weakest level since mid-2020 in November.
Energy stocks followed suit, with BP Plc and Shell both falling over 1 percent, after Brent crude futures settled below $80 on Tuesday for the first time since early January.
GSK soared 10.5 percent after a favorable U.S. court ruling involving the heartburn drug Zantac.
In economic releases, U.K. housing market continued to slow in November as house prices decreased for a third month in a row and at the steepest rate in over 14 years, survey results from the Lloyds Bank unit Halifax and S&P Global showed.
The house price index dropped 2.3 percent month-on-month as households reel under the pressures of a cost-of-living crisis and an economic recession.
Economists were looking for a modest 0.2 percent decline in the Halifax house price index.
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