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FTSE 100 closes higher on Thursday

Xinhua, January 23, 2015 Adjust font size:

FTSE 100 Index, British benchmark stock market gauge, Thursday increased by 1.02 percent, or 68.59 points, to 6,796.63.

The London stock rose as the European Central Bank (ECB) decided to start euro zone quantitative easing.

The ECB announced on Thursday to start quantitative easing by purchasing public and private securities in a bid to address prolonged low inflation.

The purchasing would start in March 2015 with a monthly amount of 60 billion euros (69.48 billion U.S. dollars).

Besides, British public sector net borrowing was 13.1 billion pounds (or 20 billion U.S. dollars) in December 2014 compared with 10.3 billion pounds a year earlier, said the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Thursday.

Smiths Group's share price increased by 4.99 percent, topped the gainers of the blue chips. Royal Mail, Tesco, BG Group and Glencore increased by 3.55 percent, 2.99 percent, 2.82 percent and 2.64 percent percent respectively.

Dixons Carphone led the top losers of the blue chips with a share price drop of 2.07 percent, followed by Shire (1.75 percent), Fresnillo (1.03 percent), SABMiller (0.99 percent) and Aggreko (0.96 percent).

The index has gained 3.62 percent so far this year when measured in U.S. dollar. Endit