London Report: FTSE hits brakes ahead of 14-year high as ITV drops
THE FTSE 100 steadied near a 14-year high yesterday, despite broadcaster ITV falling 5.7 per cent after seeing its market share drop in the first four months of the year.
ITV’s second-quarter guidance for net advertising revenue was just short of their 14 per cent forecast.
The London index ended 0.08 per cent higher at 6,878.49 points after touching its highest level – 6880.7 points – since December 1999 earlier in the session.
On the positive side, caterer Compass was up 1.8 per cent after it said it would return £1bn to shareholders through a special dividend and raised its interim dividend to 8.8p per share.
And Mondi gained 1.3 per cent to 1,044p a share after the South African packaging giant said first-quarter profit had risen by 13 per cent.
However, Glencore Xstrata and eight other FTSE 100 companies traded without the rights to dividends today, shaving 15.7 points off the equity benchmark.