FTSE rises on Carphone Warehouse rumours

The mobile phone retailer was the top rising stock up 18.75 (5.65%) to 350.75 following rumours of an offer from Vodafone and the expectation of strong Christmas sales. Mining stocks including Xstrata, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton also performed strongly on the back of record metal prices. Retailers were among the losers with Next down 41.00 to 1511.00 as a result of poor Christmas sales and Marks and Spencer Group falling 8.50 at 534.00. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones closed up 12.76 at 13056.72 helped by strong economic data. However, there was disastrous news from Japan where th...