Gains seen in London markets

Equities markets in London were higher on Tuesday, spurred on by earnings reports and a strong opening in New York. The FTSE 100 added 0.7 percent to 5,895.5, while the FTSE 250 was 0.9 percent higher to 9,605.5.

With miners lower again on dropping commodities prices, some investors were switching into telecommunications and technology stocks. Sage, which produces accountancy software, added 2.2 percent to 247¼p. Among telecoms, Vodafone was 2.4 percent higher to 117½p. Vodafone was also helped for a second day by Telecom Italia’s move to divest itself of its mobile phone business.

In the steel sector, Corus was up 2.2 percent to 375¾p on positive comments from UBS.

Cruise ship operator Carnival added 3.6 percent to £24.33 on rumors that results from the summer quarter will meet analyst predictions. Part of this talk was based the fact that rival Royal Caribbean has upped its predictions for its summer results. In addition, analysts figure that a quiet hurricane season might have increased bookings.

The media sector was mixed. ITV was down by 2.2 percent to 98¾p as it seemed that advertising revenues for ITV1 could be as much as 20 percent lower in October. In addition, Cazenove repeated its “underperform” rating based on less spending by advertisers. However UTV, which owns Northern Ireland’s ITV franchise, added 1.1 percent to 370¾p.

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