FTSE touched 5900 today!

FTSE touched 5900 today, pushing 2.5 year highs, despite the drag of snow affected retailers and BA woes. 
Lots of additional negative sentiment surrounding Korea and Sovereign debt as well. 

Positive statements from National Grid regarding available gas supplies put a bit of a spurt under the shares which broke the recent downward trend that has been in place since the shares went ex dividend on the 1st December. The benefit was also felt by other utilities incl. Centrica and Scottish & Southern. All 3 companies are held in my portfolio for Value and Income with prospective dividend yields of: 6.6%; 4.2%; and 6.3%.

Elsewhere, it looks like RBS has temporarily avoided a head to head with Vince Cable and George Osborne with the latter stranded in New York due to the weather. If media reports are true then it looks like RBS will push on with its plan to pay bonuses in excess of £1bn to employees. 
The results of the industry's bonus driven malpractices prior to the credit crunch are still very much in evidence as illustrated by the recent Lloyds announcement that further write downs for debt defaults will be needed due to Ireland's woes and, despite not receiving the same degree of assistance, Barclays is significantly exposed to any further weakness in Spain's position.
In light of continuing sovereign debt concerns and possible retaliatory action from the government over bonuses, I struggle to understand why the bank sector went up today, albeit slightly, unless it is on the back of the CBP report forecasting interest rate increases next year!

I also noticed last week that, with very little fanfare, RBS unloaded its Chinese operations with no financial benefit transferring to RBS. Once of a day this was the key reason to invest in RBS as the future driver of growth for the group.

Anyway, it still looks to be  too early for me to delve back into domestic banks despite the obvious gearing to global economic recovery.  Both, HSBC and Standard Chartered have obvious far eastern attractions but are also fully valued with little leeway for failure now.