FTSE 100

Japan's main equity market surged to a five-year high on the first day of trading after the country's Golden Week public holiday.

The FTSE 100 has hit a new five-year high after better-than-expected US jobs data sparked a 50 point rise in the blue chip index.

CONTRARIAN

Shares in the Royal Bank of Scotland sold-off heavily on Friday morning following its latest results, with Investec Bank's respected analyst Ian Gordon downgrading the bank to sell after labeling revenues at its investment banking arm "awful".

Positive results from BG Group and Shell, alongside the completion of Glencore's long-running takeover of Xstrata, helped counter losses at UK engineers and propped up UK shares today.

BNP Paribas has launched the first ever range of trackers offering access to FTSE 100 dividend futures within its range of Exchange Traded Certificates, known as EasyTrackers.

Aberdeen Asset Management saw its shares jump 9% in trading this morning after the group reported a huge hike in its dividend.

An analysis of changes in Google query volume for search terms related to finance reveals patterns that could be interpreted as early-warning signs of stock market moves.

Hargreaves Lansdown co-founder Stephen Lansdown has sold 5.5m shares in the wealth manager, bringing his stake in the company down below 20%.

Shares in Standard Life were topping the FTSE 100 leaderboard this morning after its latest update showed assets under management(AUM)at its investment business had reached a new record.