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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Your eyes do not deceive you: UK stocks really are on a great run. In March, I described the FTSE 100 index as “edging to its own record high, with all the grace of Mr Bean on ice skates, in a force 10 gale, carrying two bowls of custard, in the dark”. I stand by that. But the thing with Mr Bean is that he generally gets there in the end.
The UK’s main stocks index has now cracked well above 8,000 for the first time, marking a more than 9 per cent gain so far this year. Even flipping in to dollars to enable easier comparisons, that makes the UK one of the biggest gainers in Europe in 2024, and puts up a respectable challenge to the US.
Hargreaves Lansdown, which caters to retail investors in the UK, reckons the market “is demonstrating that it’s got its mojo back”. It has an awful lot of mojo to…
