Strong sales of plumbing supplies by Wolseley and analyst expectations of Tesco sales gains are helping push the FTSE higher by about 18 points to 4,838.
Wolseley is up nearly 5%, or 45.5p to 1,033.5p after reporting earnings in the five months to the end of December jumped 25% in its core US and UK markets. Standard Chartered is up 10.5p to 947.5p after the Hong Kong government announced a series of deals between banks in the territory and local banks in the Chinese province of Zhejian. HSBC is up 3.5p to 880p. Tesco is up 3.5p to 320.25p as analysts buy into estimates it took market share from competitors such as Boots over the Christmas period. In the past few days Tesco has announced it may branch out into non-food stores. B...
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