BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - U.K. stocks rallied on Tuesday to extend gains from the previous session as positive early results from a coronavirus vaccine trial boosted hopes of a swifter global economic recovery.
Brexit trade talks also remained on investors' radar after Prime Minister Boris Johnson suffered a crushing defeat in the House of Lords over his plans to breach international law on Brexit.
The benchmark FTSE 100 climbed 65 points, or 1 percent, to 6,250 after rising 4.7 percent in the previous session.
Housebuilder Persimmon lost nearly 4 percent despite saying it was on course to deliver a good result for the full year.
Oxford Instruments soared 8 percent. The provider of equipment to the scientific community expects its full-year performance to be ahead of current analyst forecasts.
Premier Foods, the maker of Oxo stock cubes and Bisto gravy, lost 5 percent despite raising its full-year profit guidance.
In economic releases, the U.K. unemployment rate increased in the third quarter and redundancies reached a record high, data from the Office for National Statistics showed.
The ILO jobless rate rose by 0.7 percentage points from the previous quarter to 4.8 percent in three months to September, as economists' expected.
Meanwhile, the employment rate dropped by 0.6 percent from the preceding quarter to 75.3 percent.
Separately, data from the British Retail Consortium revealed that U.K. retail sales increased notably in October as customers resorted to stockpiling ahead of the nationwide lockdown.
Total retail sales grew 4.9 percent on a yearly basis in October and the like-for-like sales advanced 5.2 percent.
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