LONDON MARKETS: FTSE 100 Posts Best April Among Europe's Benchmark Indexes

By Carla Mozee, MarketWatch

Royal Mail shares climb

U.K. stocks pulled out a big win Thursday, shrugging off worries about global growth, as a raft of corporate earnings from Royal Dutch Shell PLC and others pushed stocks higher.

The FTSE 100 ended 0.2% higher at 6,960.62, with industrial, energy and consumer-goods shares among advancers. The blue-chip index had fallen in the previous two sessions.

On Wednesday, the index fell 1.2% (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ftse-100-in-the-red-as-mining-barclays-shares-struggle-2015-04-29) as stocks globally were shaken after data showed U.S. gross domestic product grew much more slowly than anticipated in the first quarter.

But the FTSE 100 still ended April with a gain of 2.8%, outperforming other European benchmarks .

On Thursday, Shell (RDSB) shares rose 1.2% after the British oil major said first-quarter profit rose (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/shell-profit-up-7-despite-sharp-fall-in-revenue-2015-04-30-24855048), although revenue fell sharply. Profit on a current cost-of-supplies basis, similar to net income that U.S. oil companies report, rose to $4.76 billion from $4.16 billion a year earlier. Revenue fell to $65.71 billion from $109.66 billion a year ago

Royal Mail PLC was the London session's strongest performer. Shares popped 5.2% higher after Dutch postal company PostNL and private-equity firm LDC ended talks about expanding postal-delivery company Whistl in Britain.

Jefferies noted that Royal Mail had previously said if Whistl were able to reach 40% household coverage, that could cost it about GBP200 million in revenue by fiscal year 2017-1018.

Drug maker Shire PLC rose 0.9% after first-quarter profit came in ahead of analyst expectations.

But Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) shares dropped 3.2% after the company swung to first-quarter net loss of 446 million pounds (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/rbs-posts-loss-on-restructuring-litigation-costs-2015-04-30)($688.6 million). The bank, which is 80% owned by the U.K. government, was hurt by restructuring and litigation charges.

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