Monetary easing by the Bank of China fuelled miners on Monday, which in turn lifted the FTSE at home and other European indices abroad. Raised hopes of a second Greece bailout deal being struck also helped propel stocks higher, particularly in the absence of any key economic data from the US, which remained closed Monday for Presidents’ Day.
The FTSE 100 index closed up 40 points or 0.7% at 5,945, while the FTSE 250 index added 108 points or 1.0% to settle at 11,420.
In Europe, it is hoped that the region’s finance ministers will reach agreement on the second bailout of Greece in the not-too-distant future and upbeat comments from German officials on Monday helped to underpin this sentiment.
Meanwhile, the People’s Bank of China on Saturday announced that it will cut the Required Reserve Ratio for all depository institutions by 0.5%. “This second cut in RRR confirms our belief that the year of the Dragon will be a year of liquidity and recovery, and further monetary loosening moves are expected in the first half of 2012,” commented Raymond Ma, portfolio manager of Fidelity China Consumer Fund. "Historically, Chinese equities tend to outperform during the monetary easing cycle and vice versa,” he added.
The move was predictably interpreted as a ‘thumbs up’ for metal demand in a strong economic environment, and thus boosted shares of miners in London. Vedanta Resources (VED), BHP Billiton (BLT) and Eurasian Natural Resources (ENRC) took on between 2.6% and 3.5% each.
In other mining news, industrial engineer Weir Group (WEIR) topped the FTSE 100 leaderboard with a 6.6% climb ahead of results Wednesday. Weir is currently bidding against Danish firm FLSmidth (FLS) in a race to acquire Australian miner Ludowici (LDW).
Just one in five FTSE 100 stocks remained in the red by close of play Monday, among them several companies oft favoured for their defensive characteristics. Shire (SHP) shed 1.1%, while Imperial Tobacco (IMT) and Severn Trent (SVT) lost 0.8% and 0.7%, respectively.