After leading the market lower, miners have now helped shares to rally.
The impetus was news that China had cut its bank reserve requirement ratio by 0.5%, reversing its recent actions and showing its concern about a slowdown. With the rest of the global economy under pressure, not least of course in the eurozone, that concern is not misplaced. Joshua Raymond, chief market strategist at City Index said:
The FTSE 100 and broader European Indices recovered from earlier losses after China cut the bank reserve requirement ratio by 0.5% in a move to curb slowing growth, marking a change in tune from a previous hawkish monetary policy stance.
The move was enough to sharply increase short term demand of mining stocks, with the FTSE 350 mining sector rallying from around 2% down on the day to trade in positive territory within minutes of the announcement. The positive move in the heavyweight miners provided the engine behind the FTSE's resurgence from negative territory to trade higher by 0.8% by late morning.
So Antofagasta has added 45p to £11.29 while Kazakhmys has climbed 28.5p to 897p and Xstrata, which earlier fell as low at 915, is up 31p at 986p.
Overall the FTSE 100 is now up 59.05 points at 5396.05.
