Market overview: Footsie plays catch-up with markets overseas

1630:Close The Footsie ended the day higher as London markets played catch-up with gains Stateside over Easter. Last Friday's weaker than expected US jobs report - which led traders to push out the expected date for the first rate hike by the US Fed - together with gains in crude futures, proved a potent mix. Over the weekend Saudi Arabia raised its prices on crude shipments to Asian buyers. Markets took that as a sign of improved demand. To take into account as well, a last minute agreement between Iran and the P5+1 nations kept negotiations to bring with the Islamic Republic on track. Remarks from the Fed's Kocherlakota in favour of keeping rates on hold until next year also helped sentiment. FTSE 100 up 128.31 points to 6,961.77.

1549: Oil stocks are in demand on Tuesday as traders play catch-up with gains in crude futures over the last few days. During the weekend Saudi Arabia increased its official price for Asian oil buyers, which markets interpreted as a sign of improving demand. The battered shares prices of energy and exploration outfits such as Premier Oil lead the advance, alongside gains in the likes of Hunting and Soco International.

1523: The US central bank must wait until next year to raise its main policy rate, according to one policy-maker. “Under my current outlook, I continue to believe that it would be a mistake to raise the target range for the fed funds rate in 2015,” the President of the Minneapolis Fed, Narayana Kocherlakota, said in prepared remarks.

1522: Stock in Ocado is higher ahead of the release of the British Retail Consortium’s shop price index for March which was due for release just after midnight on Tuesday. Kantar Worldpanel’s latest grocery market statistics for the 12 weeks ending 29 March were also to be published on Wednesday.

1044: UPS's attempt to acquire TNT in 2012 failed due to competition concerns from the European Commission over the European market for international express packages, Berenberg points out today. However, FedEx only has about 10% of that market in Europe. Together with TNT its slice of the market would only rise to 25%, the same as UPS and well behind the market leader, DHL.

1041: Due to the unrelenting competition from Middle Eastern airlines and the superior risk/reward offered by low cost carriers Jp Morgan has lowered its view on shares of IAG, Lufthansa and Air France. At the same time it has upped its recommendations on RyanAir, kept easyJet at overweight and initiated coverage on WizzAir at overweight.

1030: UK and European equities are set to outperform in April as a result of strong growth surprises, as are Gilts and investment grade corporate bonds.

0949: Vodafone is up 1.1% after UBS highlighted the possibility of a potential bid from Liberty Global. The bank said that the stock has been held back recently by euro weakness and concerns that VOD could pay a high price to acquired LBTY. "However, developments in the UK (BT/EE) & potentially in Belgium (TNET/BASE) could suggest that mobile assets are strategically more valuable than investors expect, that other scenarios are equally possible, & that if any deal between VOD/LBTY were to occur it could be a merger of equals or LBTY acquiring VOD, rather than VOD acquiring LBTY," UBS said.

0930: Activity in Britain’s services sector accelerated in March. Markit’s services sector purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for last month printed at 58.9, up from 56.7 in the month before. Economists had been expecting a reading of 57 points.

0914: The six-month moratorium on a bid from Glencore on Rio Tinto lapses today but such a transaction continues to be more in the interests in Glencore, muses Shore Capital's Yuen Low. "We do not expect a price to be easily agreed and hence see no deal in the near term," Low adds. That is in-line with other market commentary over the weekend to the effect that the relative valuations of the two companies are still not close enough for a bid price which might be agreeable to both parties to be reached.

0906: Stocks are bouncing back strongly at the start of trading on the back of last Friday’s much weaker than expected US jobs report. That saw economists push back their forecast for the start of interest rate normalisation Stateside to September, from June. There was also company-specific news-flow out over the weekend related to Marks&Spencer and Weir Group. IAG is down on the heels of a negative note out of JP Morgan. Easyjet and Carnival are also off on the back of Monday’s jump in crude futures. Overnight, Australia and India kept their main policy rates unchanged. That triggered a spike in the Aussie as a reduction had been anticipated. The question however remains whether the RBA really should react to the drop in commodities prices with a rate cut. FTSE 100 up 82 points to 6,915.08.

0900: Markit's Eurozone services sector PMI edged lower to a reading of 54.2 for March from 54.3 in the month before (consensus: 54.3).