BRITAIN'S FTSE 100 HITS RECORD HIGH AS SHELL SHINES

(Reuters) - Britain's FTSE 100 opened at a record high, boosted by gains in Shell after Reuters reported its plans to sell the Malaysian gas station business and BP gained on maintaining share buyback plans but missed earnings forecast.

The blue-chip FTSE 100 index was up 1.2% at 8,309.04 by 0712 GMT, while the FTSE 250 midcap index rose 0.8%.

Shell jumped 1.6% after Reuters reported the energy giant is in talks to sell its gas station business in Malaysia to Saudi Aramco.

BP edged 0.4% higher after the oil major maintained the rate of its share buyback programme at $1.75 billion over the next three months but missed forecasts due to lower oil and gas prices and a U.S. refinery outage.

Homebuilders advanced 1.4% as British house prices edged higher in April, rising 0.1% from March and up 1.1% from a year earlier, figures from mortgage lender Halifax showed.

Medical equipment and services was the only sector trading in the red, down 0.2%.

(Reporting by Shubham Batra in Bengaluru; Editing by Sohini Goswami)

2024-05-07T07:28:57Z dg43tfdfdgfd