Market overview: Banks and housebuilders rise, energy services fall

0916: Banking stocks are among the best performers early on with HSBC, Barclays, RBS and Lloyds making decent gains. Housebuilders such Persimmon, Bellway, Barratt Developments and Bovis Homes are also providing a lift. Oil service stocks are weak, however, with Wood Group, Hunting and Petrofac registering steep losses. A director of Premier Oil, Robin Allan, said on Thursday that the North Sea oil industry was “close to collapse” and that it’s “almost impossible to make money at these oil prices”.

0830: UK markets have opened strongly with the FTSE 100 up around 0.6% after the massive gains seen on Wall Street last night with the Dow registering its best one-day gain in three years (+2.4%). British American Tobacco is higher this morning after revealing it is to pay out $575m to settle a legacy litigation case with a company involved in the production and sale of asbestos-containing products in the 1980s. The agreement “brings this long running litigation to an end”, the company said.