FTSE and Dow soar after huge deals

In the UK, the purchase by China and Alcoa of a £7.2bn stake in Rio Tinto has helped ease the FTSE past the 6,000 mark. The move, considered an attempt to derail BHP Billiton’s bid for the world’s third-largest mining company, helped push the FTSE to 6,016.1 at around 3.30pm. Meanwhile in the US, news of a £44bn bid from software giant Microsoft for Yahoo! has helped push the Dow Jones up 50 points, or 0.4%, to 12700.35 after less than an hour’s trading. Expectedly, Microsoft tops the losers table. Remarkably, Yahoo is up 9.43 points, to 28.61, a climb of 49.17%, on the Nasdaq index. ...