BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - U.K. stocks rose notably on Wednesday, with energy stocks leading the surge as crude oil prices jumped to their highest in eleven months following Saudi Arabia's decision to cut oil production. Investors also awaited the final outcome of the Georgia runoff election.
The benchmark FTSE 100 jumped 64 points, or nearly 1 percent, to 6,675, extending gains for the third consecutive session.
Oil heavyweight BP Plc soared 3.8 percent and Royal Dutch Shell rallied 2.2 percent after Saudi Arabia agreed to reduce output more than expected in a meeting with allied producers.
Informa advanced 2.2 percent. The publishing company said the Group's performance for 2020 will be in line with the revenue guidance provided at the half-year results in September 2020.
Aggreko jumped 3 percent. The supplier of temporary power generation equipment confirmed that it has now agreed and signed the necessary contract revisions with The Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games to reflect both scope changes and the impact of the delay of the Games into this year.
Bakery chain Greggs surged as much as 8.4 percent. The company said it does not expect profits to return to pre-Covid levels until 2022 at the earliest.
In economic news, U.K. shop prices continued to fall in December, data from the British Retail Consortium revealed. The shop price index declined 1.8 percent on a yearly basis in December, the same rate as seen in November.
Food inflation eased to 0.4 percent, the lowest since March 2018 with a significant fall in fresh food prices. At the same time, non-food prices decreased 3.2 percent annually.
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