The UK’s top shares made a winning start to the week, helped by miners ENRC and Evraz.
Kazakhstan based Eurasian Natural Resources (LON:ENRC) led the gainers on the FTSE 100 today, advancing almost 5% after revealing improved output at the end of last year.
The miner said it had improved ferrochrome production by almost 9% in the fourth quarter, producing just shy of 400,000 tonnes, while iron ore output rose more than 4% to 11mln tonnes. ENRC chief Felix Vulis also predicts a strong performance this year.
Russian steelmaker Evraz (LON:EVR) meanwhile followed ENRC higher.
Finance and retail stocks were on the rise too with Morrison (LON:MRW), Tesco (LON:TSCO), Aviva (LON:AV.) all among Monday’s big cap winners.
The FTSE 100 ended the session in positive territory. Standing at 6,277 the blue chip benchmark closed 13 points or 0.2% higher.
This comes despite more gloomy data that some reckon suggests the UK is headed for another recession.
A survey suggesting that confidence among UK business is at its lowest ever level failed to stop the Footsie making its way up 15 points (0.25%) to 6,279 as it edges back towards the psychological 6,300 mark it passed recently.
Mike van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets, takes the view that the benchmark index will slip to around 6,150 after its strong rally in recent weeks.
“If anything, the proximity of resistance improves the reward-to-risk profile of any Southerly-facing trade,” the analyst said.
Investors stocked up on supermarket giant Tesco (LON:TSCO), which lifted 1.5% after an upgrade from analysts at BNP Exane Paribas.
Scandal-embroiled Barclays (LON:BARC) climbed almost 1% ahead of new CEO Antony Jenkins’s keenly-awaited strategy update.
Analysts expect the update to focus on style rather than substance as the bank looks to rebuild its image, which has been left in tatters in the wake of the Libor scandal.
A new BBC Panorama investigation has found Barclays misled shareholders in 2008 about the source of its £3bn investment.
iPad chip designer ARM Holdings (LON:ARM) slipped 1.7% to the bottom of the Footsie as the Australian government called tech giants to appear before a committee to look at pricing levels.
On the mid cap index, online grocer Ocado (LON:OCDO) raced 7.5% ahead, with Petra Diamonds (LON:PDL) sparkling 6% higher.
SuperGroup (LON:SGP), the company behind the popular SuperDry brand, dropped 1.6% when Espirito Santo analysts urged investors to shelve the shares.
As for the minnows, there were some big shifts at both ends of the spectrum.
Buoying the small caps was Beacon Hill Resources (LON:BHR), which gained over 26%. The miner took a “quantum step” according to its CEO when it sealed a deal to transport 500,000 tonnes of coking coal a year along the Sena rail line to the Beira port in Mozambique.
It means the company can begin exporting its product from the Minas Moatize coking coal mine in the country’s Tete region later this year.
Other big gains came from video search engine pioneer Blinkx, which soared 25% after it raised full-year revenue guidance following a strong third quarter, Hayward Tyler, up 11% and Triple Plate Junction, which shot up 20%.
Forbidden Technologies also rose 11% when it struck a deal with South African systems integrator Atos, while Range Resources rose by the same amount after an upbeat production update from Trinidad.
Falling in the other direction was Noventa, which recorded the biggest slump in London at 70% as it defaulted on a rescue loan agreed last August after lower-than-expected tantalum production.