(RTTNews) - U.K. stocks advanced on Wednesday after Moderna coronavirus vaccine showed 'promising' safety and immune response results in published Phase 1 study and official data showed British inflation accelerated unexpectedly in June.
U.K. consumer price inflation rose to 0.6 percent from 0.5 percent in May, data from the Office for National Statistics showed. The rate was expected to slow to 0.4 percent.
Confounding expectations for a decline of 0.2 percent, consumer prices gained 0.1 percent after remaining unchanged in May.
Excluding energy, food, alcoholic beverages and tobacco, core inflation advanced to 1.4 percent from 1.2 percent in May. The rate was forecast to remain unchanged at 1.2 percent.
The benchmark FTSE 100 rose 44 points, or 0.71 percent, to 6,224 after inching up 0.1 percent the previous day, thanks to a weaker pound following disappointing May GDP data.
HSBC Holdings declined 1.8 percent. Amazon.com announced that its cloud platform Amazon Web Services has reached a long-term agreement with the British bank.
Travel and leisure stocks were rising, with EasyJet climbing 2.4 percent and International Consolidated Airlines Group adding 3.8 percent.
Miners Antofagasta and Glencore rose 2-3 percent on the back of economic recovery optimism.
Fashion brand Burberry slumped 7.3 percent after it warned second-quarter revenue would be materially hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
GlaxoSmithKline rose 1.6 percent after a U.S. health panel voted in favor of its blood cancer drug.
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