Northern shares soar amid election market rally

Shares of banks, utilities, transport companies and property firms were among the biggest winners in Friday’s UK stock market rally on the back of the resounding Tory victory in the UK general election.

Yorkshire Bank owner Virgin Money UK soared almost 20%, York house building giant Persimmon and Newcastle-based rival Bellway both leapt 12%, and Manchester-based fashion retailer N Brown Group rose 13%.

Doncaster-based DFS Furniture rose 12%, Newcastle-based international bus and rail giant Go-Ahead Group rose 9%, Bolton-based online electrical retailer AO World rose 9%, and Manchester-based online holiday retailer On the Beach Group rose 8%.

Newcastle-based landlord Grainger plc, Warrington-based United Utilities and Manchester-based Auto Trader Group all rose 7%.

Manchester-based online fashion giant Boohoo Group and Bury-based FTSE 100 retailer JD Sports Fashion both rose about 6%.

Wakefield-based greeting card and gift retailer Card Factory, Manchester car dealership Lookers plc, and North Yorkshire-based power company Drax Group all rose 6%.

Newcastle-based Greggs, Leeds-based Jet2 owner Dart Group, and Flintshire-based house builder Redrow all rose 5%.

Manchester-based investment platform AJ Bell and Salford-based broadband giant TalkTalk Telecom Group rose 4%

Emma Wall, head of investment analysis at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “Banks, property and utilities are benefiting from the Boris bounce. 

“As expected, it’s the domestically focused stocks that have done well this morning from the Boris bounce. 

“UK banks Barclays, Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland have jumped – shrugging off that Moody’s downgrade of last week.

“The property and infrastructure stocks are also up in mid-morning trading, from housebuilders Barratt Developments and Taylor Wimpey, to real estate investment trust British Land.

“The biggest winners of the morning are the utilities stocks. Now that the spectre of nationalisation has been banished Centrica, SSE and United Utilities have bounced as much as 10% – rewarding those brave shareholders who backed them through the Corbyn manifesto threat.”