Markets rise for second day as investors bet on next Fed move

Some of London’s biggest retailers and banks helped pull its top index to another day of strong gains on Tuesday.

Shares in Burberry, JD Sports and B&M were close to the top of the FTSE 100 as the index added 73.04 points, a 1% rise, to 7,296.28.

Not far behind were NatWest, Standard Chartered, Lloyds and Barclays, likely to have been helped by news out of the US.

“Investors seem to be taking the view that the US Federal Reserve will not be overly aggressive with the pace of interest rate hikes, in the belief that the central bank would not want to risk plunging the country into economic turmoil,” said Danni Hewson, financial analyst at AJ Bell.

Michael Hewson, an analyst at CMC Markets, said one of the main gas pipelines between Russia and Europe might restart shipments later this week.

“The nature of today’s gains was initially cautious and incremental in nature, with the lack of negative drivers and positive earnings updates, helping to give a more positive bias to the day’s price action,” he said.

“We got additional traction in the afternoon session on reports out of Moscow which indicated that gas flows out of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline would resume as scheduled on Thursday, albeit at a lower capacity.

“This is welcome news if true, given that earlier today European Commission officials were assuming the pipeline would not restart.

“Worries over the longer-term outlook remain as evidenced in weakness in oil and copper prices, but for now the focus is on earnings.”

In Germany the Dax index rose 2.7% while the Cac 40 in Paris rose 1.8%.

On Wall Street the S&P 500 had gained 2% shortly after markets closed in Europe, with the Dow Jones up 1.7%.

In company news, shares in Hotel Chocolat dropped heavily, down 45%, after the business warned it will lose money this year.

The firm said it thinks UK sales growth will slow, it is pulling out of its US retail stores and will halt investment in its Japanese joint venture.

“Hotel Chocolat is far from the only UK business that has struggled to hit the mark with American consumers, and with inflation soaring it’s a tricky time to be asking people to pay premium prices no matter how tasty the product might be,” Ms Hewson said.

Elsewhere, Made.com, a furniture seller, said it is reviewing its headcount in a bid to save money.

The business, which has 700 staff across Europe and China, said it will also look at its operational structure.

Shares plummeted 46%.

The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were GSK, up 393.6p to 1,783.4p, Informa, up 31.6p to 568.6p, Burberry, up 72.5p to 1,716p, JD Sports, up 5.5p to 137.5p, and B&M, up 14.2p to 408.2p.

The biggest fallers were Ocado, down 25.0p to 754.8p, Haleon, down 7p to 301p, Aveva, down 51p to 2,244p, Endeavour Mining, down 11p to 1,618p, and Admiral Group, down 9p to 1,729p.