the uk’s ftse 100 equity index ukx has hit 8000 for the first time as investors warm to its mix of lowvalued bluechips many with exposure to revitalized sectors such as energy mining and financials “it’s all about opportunity about the long haul and sectors that might have been shunned just a few months ago are finding that investor interest has been rekindled” said danni hewson aj bell financial analyst the city of london’s benchmark was trading at 8040 shortly after the open on thursday it briefly popped above 8000 on wednesday only to close a few points shy of the landmark the footsie as it is known has gained 76 year to date and has bounced about 60 since plunging below 5000 an eightyear low at the peak of the covid panic in march 2020 the rebound has been driven in part by some renewed optimism among global investors as they bet that falling inflation in the uk will soon encourage the bank of england to ease the pace of interest rate rises declining energy costs in europe and the opening up of china’s economy as covid restrictions are lifted has also helped sentiment and consequently since the start of 2023 the europewide stoxx 600 sxxp is up 93 wall street’s sp 500 spx has gained 8 for the year to date popular uslisted exchangetraded funds investing in europe including the vanguard ftse europe etf vgk and the jpmorgan betabuilders europe etf bbeu are each up about 10 this year “the recent outperformance of europe versus the us is arguably the former’s best relative run in over 20 years” said graham secker equity strategist at morgan stanley “we see four main catalysts behind europe’s recent rally i economic news flow is holding up better in europe than the us ii lower eu gas prices iii europe is more geared to china iv better earnings revisions in europe than the us” secker recently wrote in a note to clients however the footsie has received additional support for a number of reasons first it has few richly valued technology companies and is replete with highly cash generative relatively lowly valued sectors such as basic materials energy and financials that was a problem for the footsie for many years when the zero interest rate environment encouraged investors to seek socalled ‘growth’ stocks now with interest rates much higher investors are keen to buy such ‘value’ even after its good run the footsie sports a forward priceearnings ratio of about 108 according to factset compared to 184 for the sp 500 for example furthermore the footsie’s dividend yield of about 37 is double that of the sp 500 another issue helping the london benchmark is that many of those lowlyvalued sectors are expected to face macroeconomic tailwinds and helpful demograhic trends miners and energy groups such as antofagasta anto  anglo american aal  rio tinto rio  bp bp and shell shel are benefitting from hopes of greater demand from china astrazeneca azn and glaxosmithkline gsk are riding an emphasis on healthcare amid pandemic fretting and as societies age “investors appear to have fallen back in love with uk assets after a difficult period when ftse 100 was the wallflower among global indices confidence has rebounded as investors eye up china’s reopening helping commodity stocks” said susannah streeter senior investment and markets analyst at hargreaves lansdown financials the biggest footsie sector with a near 19 weighting and which includes hsbc hsba  europe’s largest bank by assets are enjoying a revival as interest rates have moved higher ironically worries about the poor relative health of the uk economy has also lifted the footsie the british pound gbpusd sits only about 20 above its record low partly on the back of that but because around 80 of footsie revenues come from abroad the weaker pound is another support for the index’s earnings “uk markets…continued their sprightly start to the year…there has also been some suggestion that certain us investors are currently looking towards europe for more immediate investment opportunities with the ftse100 having been one of last year’s relative success stories ” said richard hunter head of markets at interactive investor