Morning markets: Wall Street rally buoys shares

The Dow Jones closed higher at 10611.81, up 44.51 points (0.42%), marking its third day of rises and its highest closing level since January 19.

Topping the winners' board was International Business Machines Corp, up 1.98 points (0.58%) to $127.60 per share.

Elsewhere The Home Depot Inc. was trading buoyantly at $31.13, up 0.42 points (1.32%), in the wake of being lauded as one of the ‘Most Valuable US Retail Brands".

Materials and industrials components continued to suffer with 3M, trading at $81.26, down 0.30 points (0.37%). Elsewhere Coca Cola was down 0.60 points (1.1%) trading at $53.60.

The strong showing from the US impacted on other markets around the globe with the FTSE at 5617.95, up 0.69 points (0.01%).

A strong showing by bank shares buoyed the index, in spite of the release of a damaging report on the Lehman debacle which is expected to instigate a series of costly court cases for the banking sector.

The Royal Bank of Scotland traded at 41p up 0.90 points (2.22%), while Lloyds Banking Group was at 57p, up 1.14 points or 2.02%.

Standard Life weighed in at 218p, up 3.20 pints (1.49%), after the firm posted better-than-expected pre-tax profits for 2009.

HSBC topped the losers' board trading at £6.88 down 6.60 points (0.95%) after announcing yesterday the theft of account information from 24,000 customers.

Elsewhere, copper mining company Kazakhmys was down 9 points to £14.87.

Meanwhile, in Japan the Nikkei closed at a seven week high on Friday, up 86.31 points to 10,751.26. Share in exporters were boosted by hopes new measures by the Bank of Japan may ease monetary policy and weaken the yen.