Miners come up gold for FTSE 100 as London rallies – London Report
Asian market gains helped the FTSE to rally yesterday for a third straight session – also boosted by encouraging corporate news from mining companies and financial firms.
The FTSE 100 index was up 1.4 per cent at 6,229.01 points at its close, still around 12.6 per cent off April’s record high, after uncertainty over China’s growth caused market turmoil in August.
The FTSE 350 mining sector index was up 3.5 per cent, extending the previous session’s rise of 2.6 per cent.
The market ignored a report that British manufacturing output fell in July, since it makes an interest rate increase by the Bank of England less likely.
“I don’t think this miss in manufacturing production is that much of a big surprise,” said Fawad Razaqzada, technical analyst at Gain Capital.
The rally in mining shares followed a rebound by Chinese stocks, which reached a three-week high on hopes of further government stimulus. China is a major consumer of minerals.
Anglo American jumped 5.5 per cent, one of the biggest gains on the FTSE 100.
Its Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) unit sold labour-intensive South African mines to Sibanye Gold for 4.5bn rand (£213m) to focus on newer, mechanised mines.
“We feel this is a good result for Anglo and clearly shows that the management team at both Amplats and Anglo American are delivering on promises made,” analysts at Investec said in a note.
Asset manager Hargreaves Lansdown was the top performer, rising almost seven per cent after reporting a surge in full-year assets, despite forecast-lagging profit and revenue.
Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline was the index’s top loser, falling 1.2 per cent. The company and its partner, Theravance, said their inhaled medicine Breo failed to prolong life for patients with chronic respiratory disease in a clinical trial.
Airline easyJet suffered, down 0.7 per cent after a conference call by competitor Ryanair. One trader said easyJet’s numbers looked lacklustre compared with Ryanair’s.
Among small-cap stocks, Monitise shares plummeted 51.8 per cent to 2.80p. Elizabeth Buse, the chief executive of the British mobile-banking software company quit after just over a year in the post.