LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's top share index rebounded late on Wednesday, helped by a surge in airline IAG (>> International Consolidated Airlines Grp) due to strong traffic figures and by rallies in broadcaster ITV (>> ITV plc) and bank Standard Chartered (>> Standard Chartered PLC).
The FTSE 100 <.FTSE> snapped a three-day losing streak to end 0.4 percent higher at 6,919.24 points after trading as low as 6,862.87 points in the early part of the session.
The FTSE has rallied more than 10 percent since mid-January, fuelled by anticipation of the European Central Bank's stimulus programme, details of which were set to be announced on Thursday.
"The bull market trend is intact and buying on the dips continues," Ed Woolfitt, head of trading at Galvan, said.
IAG surged in late trade to close 2.4 percent higher after reporting a 5.5 percent increase in group traffic in February.
The best performer in the index was British broadcaster ITV (>> ITV plc), however. It climbed 5.7 percent after the company said it plans to return 250 million pounds ($383.5 million) to shareholders through a special dividend after posting a better-than-expected 2014 profit.
Standard Chartered
"Standard Chartered's results were a slight miss, but we think the restructuring is finally starting to take shape and we remain positive for the outlook," said Fiat Latin, director of Guardian Stockbrokers.
So far this earnings season, 58 percent of FTSE 100 companies have reported results that met or beat expectations.
Precious metals miner Fresnillo (>> Fresnillo Plc) dropped the most in the FTSE 100 after its full-year results. The stock fell 8.5 percent after reporting a 40 percent drop in pretax profit due to a decline in gold and silver prices.
Legal & General fell 2.8 percent after reporting below-forecast 2014 operating profits even as company pension deals gave a boost to annuity sales.
(Editing by Tom Heneghan)
By Francesco Canepa and Alistair Smout
