LONDON: UK stocks climbed 34 points in early trade on Monday, FTSE 100 index surged 0.5 percent.
The blue-chip FTSE 100 index closed 0.4 percent higher at 6,915.20 points on Friday, just below a 15-year high of 6,921.32 hit on Wednesday and a record peak of 6,950.60 scaled in late 1999.
Euro zone finance ministers agreed in principle on Friday to extend Greece’s financial rescue by four months, averting a potential cash crunch in March that could have forced the country out of the currency area.
The accord requires Greece to submit by Monday a letter to the Eurogroup listing all the policy measures it plans to take during the remainder of the bailout period.
Europe’s biggest bank, HSBC said its chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, holds a bank account in Switzerland that was set up in 1998 to hold bonus payments, responding to a report in the Guardian newspaper that said he had a Swiss account that contained $7.6 million in 2007.
State-backed Lloyds Banking Group said on Monday that the British government had reduced its stake in the bank to 23.9 percent from 24.9 percent previously.
