Reuters: Hot Stocks: FTSE posts fourth week of gains, profit taking starts to emerge

Reuters: Hot Stocks Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

FTSE posts fourth week of gains, profit taking starts to emerge Jul 19th 2013, 16:08 Fri Jul 19, 2013 12:08pm EDT * FTSE 100 down 0.1 pct on day, up 1.3 pct on week * Weak U.S. tech earnings dampen sentiment * Morgan Stanley upbeat on British equities By Toni Vorobyova LONDON, July 19 (Reuters) - Britain's FTSE 100 finished lower on Friday, with investors taking profits at the end of a fourth week of gains, and with disappointing earnings from U.S. peers hitting tech stocks. The technology sector was the clear laggard, down 2 percent as sentiment soured after Microsoft < MSFT.O> profits missed estimates and Google reported a drop in advertising prices. That followed soft numbers from European peers Nokia and Ericsson earlier this week, denting expectations for tech firms that are yet to report. Chipmaker ARM, which reports second quarter results next week, was the top faller, off 2.6 percent. "The tech sector has managed to pull things back ... Expectations have been lowered as a result of some of the top line being missed by both European and U.S. tech companies," said Brenda Kelly, analyst at IG. The FTSE 100 closed down 3.69 points, or 0.1 percent at 6,630.67 points, after running into technical resistance around its late May highs. Despite the modest retreat, the British blue-chip index is up 8.4 percent over the past four weeks - its biggest four-week gain since autumn 2011. "I feel that today's move is profit taking as the index reaches a seven-week high, but there is a good potential over the medium term for a retest of the highs seen at the end of May," said Joe Bond, trader at Abshire Smith. The upbeat longer-term view was backed by a Bank of America Merrill Lynch survey this week, showing global fund managers at their most optimistic on British equities in over a decade. Morgan Stanley reiterated its overweight call, arguing that British stocks would benefit from an improving domestic economy, a weakening sterling and historically undemanding valuations. (Editing by Susan Fenton) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions