As the miners continue to drive the market on, Anglo American is leading the way.
Some of this is due to the rise in metal prices, on hopes that a global recovery (despite the financial problems in Europe) will lead to increasing demand for commodities.
But Anglo is also benefiting from analysts at Bernstein tipping it as a takeover target. In a complicated sequence of events, Bernstein says it expects a flotation of commodities group Glencore in the second quarter of this year, possibly followed by a merger with Xstrata, where Glencore already owns more than 34%, and then an offer by the joint group for Anglo. And it adds:
Even outside this scenario, we believe that Anglo American is the most likely acquisition target among the large diversified miners, and could envisage interest in the company from a number of its peers, especially considering Anglo's share price is trading on a 50% discount to its sum of the parts.
So Anglo is up 100.5p to 3319.5p, while Xstrata has added 43.5p to 1516.5p. With other miners also moving higher - notably Fresnillo which has climbed 41p to £16.49 as the silver price hits a 31 year high - the FTSE 100 is up 56.31 points at 6063.68.
