October 11, 2002	Friday	Sha'aban 4, 1423

LONDON, Oct 10: Britain’s FTSE 100 rose on Thursday, recouping earlier falls as Wall Street gained on hopes of a recovery in corporate profits, while banks and insurers clawed back losses as worries about bad debt and insolvency levels receded.

But broker downgrades took their toll, with building materials firm Hanson falling over six per cent on news Morgan Stanley lowered its rating to “equal-weight” from “overweight”, while news and information group Reuters shed six per cent, hit by a downgrade from investment bank UBS Warburg.

The FTSE 100 index ended a volatile session up 34.9 points, or 0.9 per cent, at 3,777.3, having see-sawed in a range of more than 100 points.

Gainers outnumbered fallers by around two to one in a session which saw 2.4 billion shares change hands.

A surprisingly strong profit report from US Internet media group Yahoo Inc boosted sentiment across markets, also helped by the latest US weekly jobless claims showed fewer claimants for state unemployment benefits than were expected.

Market operators said the brief glimpse of a recovery in a US corporate earnings report was also welcomed by the UK market which has seen its leading share index shed nearly 30 per cent of its value so far this year amid falling profits, corporate scandals, and fears of a possible war in Iraq.

“The problem is that we need many more of them,” said Richard Prvulovich, senior UK equities investment manager at Gartmore Investment Management.

“But these companies have made savage and deep cost cuts and profits will really improve quite significantly when final demand picks up,” he said.—Reuters