FTSE rises fuelled by miners
The FTSE 100 picked up again this morning as some of last week’s losses were recouped.
Hopes that Eurozone leaders were making progress as they tackled the debt mountain engulfing the bloc helped sentiment. One of the ideas to save struggling economies is to issue eurobonds.
But an OECD report warned that the fragile global economic recovery could easily be blown off course by the Eurozone crisis.
Meanwhile in the UK inflation figures showed that the Consumer Prices Index fell to three per cent in April, its lowest for two years.
On London’s blue chip index cruise ship giant Carnival was the highest climber, up 3.8 per cent.
iPhone chip maker Arm Holdings put on 3.7 per cent, making it the second best performer.
However mining was the strongest sector overall with a rise in the overnight copper price fuelling gains.
Chinese demand for copper is likely to improve in the second half Xstrata said, as the miner pledged to lift output by about 60 per cent over three years.
The company, the subject of a takeover bid by commodities giant Glencore, saw its shares rise 2.8 per cent
Antofagasta was up 3.5 per cent and Rio Tinto 3.4 per cent. BHP Billiton nudged up by 2.4 per cent along with Anglo American.
Banks were also solid with RBS up 2.8 per cent, Lloyds 2.2 per cent and Barclays 1.5 per cent.
Vodafone was up 1.5 per cent despite reducing its sales targets due to weaker European markets. Marks and Spencer was up 0.6 per cent even though it reported a dip in profit.
The biggest faller on the blue chip index was hedge fund giant Man Group which was down 1.9 per cent.
Others to fall between 0.5 and one per cent were Imperial Tobacco, Unilever, AstraZeneca and National Grid.
Meanwhile on the FTSE All share struggling travel company Thomas Cook lifted 1.4 per cent after announcing the sale of its Indian business to Fairbridge Capital for £94m.
In Asia the Nikkei closed up 1.1 per cent and the Hang Seng 0.6 per cent.