Obama's speech boosts FTSE

Barack Obama’s State of the Union address has helped the FTSE 100 to climb in morning trading on London today (January 28th).

According to Reuters, the index was 40.88 points higher on 5,258.35 points at 09:22 GMT, as investor confidence returned due to the US president choosing not to give fresh criticism of the financial sector in his inaugural address.

Climbs of between 1.7 per cent and 4.3 per cent were recorded by Barclays, Standard Chartered, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group, while the mining sector also bounced back as commodity prices rose.

Xstrata, Anglo American and Fresnillo were up by as much as 2.7 per cent, while Lonmin added 2.5 per cent, even though it reported a 1.36 per cent drop in platinum sales during the first quarter of the financial year.

Last week, the president outlined his plans for reform of the US banking industry, starting that the size of firms and their ability to engage in risky trading would both be limited.ADNFCR-2318-ID-19583728-ADNFCR