Lloyds Bank shares help extend ‘Boris bounce’ to 10th day

As the Santa rally continues, interactive investor wishes all our readers a very merry Christmas.

24th December 2019 12:55

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As the Santa rally continues, interactive investor wishes all our readers a very merry Christmas.

There’s little rhyme or reason for many of the bigger share price movements on Christmas Eve. A lot of City staff have already started their holidays and, with investors also in full Christmas-mode, a lack of liquidity can shift prices around more than usual. However, the post-election rally continues!

The FTSE 100 closed on Christmas Eve up 8.65 points at 7,632.24, extending the main index’s winning streak to 10 trading sessions - pre-dating Boris Johnson's election win, but no doubt the expectation of a Tory win was a contributor. Since closing at 7,213.80 on 10 December, it’s up 418 points, or 5.8%. Since the month-low of 7,134.90 on 3 December, the FTSE 100 is up 497 points, or 7%.

Source: TradingView Past performance is not a guide to future performance

With no new macro news, or major company events to spark a rush either up or down, it’s been a typically slow 24th December. In the past 11 years, the FTSE 100 has only fallen twice on Christmas Eve, although last year’s 1.2% dive was the biggest since the FTSE 100’s inception in 1984.

Including 2019, the blue-chip index has only fallen on Christmas Eve - or the last trading session before Christmas - on nine occasions in the past 36 years.

Best of the FTSE 100 stocks today was Lloyds Banking Group (LSE:LLOY), up almost 2%, closely followed by distribution giant Bunzl (LSE:BNZL), speciality chemicals firm and ever-present ii Winter Portfolio constituent Croda International (LSE:CRDA), and Ocado (LSE:OCDO).

There’s little joy for BT Group (LSE:BT.A) these days, and the shares are down another 3%, giving up a chunk of its post election gains. Rolls-Royce (LSE:RR.), Unilever (LSE:ULVR) and EVRAZ (LSE:EVR) struggled too.

Among the mid-caps, shipping company Clarkson (LSE:CKN) sailed 3.5% higher, Cairn Energy (LSE:CNE) added 3.3% and ConvaTec (LSE:CTEC) 3.1%. Elsewhere, bashed-up banknote printer De La Rue (LSE:DLAR) recovered 3.3%. Its shares are close to breakout territory and are worth watching. The breakout could go either way, sharply, although today’s move is clearly a positive.

On AIM, Futura Medical (LSE:FUM) surged by 33% at one point to 14.5p, a day after completing an oversubscribed £3.25 million fundraising at 8p per share. It’s worth noting, the shares changed hands for 31p earlier this month, just before it warned that a clinical trial of its erectile dysfunction treatment had not met its primary goals versus a placebo.

Full performance can be found on the company or index summary page on the interactive investor website. Simply click on the company's or index name highlighted in the article.

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Full performance can be found on the company or index summary page on the interactive investor website. Simply click on the company's or index name highlighted in the article.

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