Leading shares have moved higher after four days of decline, helped by a revival in the mining sector.
Over the weekend President Xi Jinping announced new infrastructure plans and also talked up the state of the country’s economy. And with traders believing interest rates will be cut if there are signs of a sustained slowdown, the comments have supported markets.
The market also took heart from comments on Friday from US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, who said an interest rate rise may well come this year but any rise would be gradual. But in the background, the struggle to resolve Greece’s financial crisis is likely to continue to unsettle investors.
So the FTSE 100 is up 50.02 points at 6905.04, with Anglo American adding 4p to £10.48 and Rio Tinto rising 29p to 2838.5p.
B&Q owner Kingfisher has climbed 11p to 368.8p after its deal to buy France’s Mr Bricolage had fallen through.
But building materials group CRH is down 30p at £17.58 on renewed doubts about the proposed merger between cement makers Holcim and Lafarge. CRH had been planning to buy unwanted assets from the combined group, but weekend reports suggested that Russian businessman Filaret Galchev, who owns nearly 11% of Holcim, had rejected the merger terms.
With oil slipping back - Brent crude is down nearly 1% at $56 a barrel - energy group BG has fallen 13.7p to 859.6p.
Elsewhere catering group Compass is up 11p at £11.85 after it forecast first half revenues would rise by around 5.5%, with a return to growth in Europe and Japan and strong demand in North America.
Chip designer Arm has added 20p to £10.99, after news that US group Intel plans to buy fellow chipmaker Altera Corporation for as much as $10bn gave a lift to the whole technology sector.
Among the mid-caps SuperGroup has risen 31p to 976.5p as RBC moved from underpeform to sector perform.
