Strong earnings help London stocks advance

London's FTSE 100 inched up on Thursday, led by an earnings-driven 5% rise in Smith+Nephew, while sharp gains in price comparison website Moneysupermarket.com and electrical engineering firm Spectris helped midcaps outperform. The blue-chip index added 0.2%, with Smith+Nephew hitting a more than four-month high after the medical products maker topped annual sales expectations for 2019 and forecast another year of revenue growth.

The FTSE 250 rose 0.4%. Moneysupermarket.com, which said on Wednesday that its chief executive officer would step down, snapped a three-day losing streak and surged 8%. Spectris jumped 6.5% after its 2019 results. Both British benchmark indexes advanced, even though a coronavirus outbreak in South Korea stoked fears that the health crisis would deepen globally.