With news of the US Federal Reserve's new money printing plans putting a rocket under global stock markets, commodity companies are occupying all of the top ten slots in the FTSE 100.
The Fed has followed the European Central Bank, which last week unveiled a bond buying programme, in acting to stimulate the flagging global economy, in this case the US. Investors like what they heard, and there is the extra impetus of China possibly following suit and taking further measures to boost demand.
So with copper, for example, jumping to its highest level for five months, Fresnillo is up 164p at £18.67 while Kazakhmys has climbed 59p to 739p. Vedanta Resources, hit earlier in the week by the suspension of production in Goa, has risen 81.5p to £10.43. Russian steelmaker Evraz, controlled by Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, is the biggest climber, up 27.3p at 286.7p.
Analyst Yuen Low at Shore Capital said the Fed's third round of quantitative easing would be good for gold and silver, and also for other commodities, albeit to a lesser degree:
We continue to favour "early cycle" materials for those anticipating a global economic recovery: pig iron, iron ore and coking coal, copper. We also like low cost nickel.
The FTSE 100 itself is up 79.57 points at 5899.49, on course for its highest close since the end of March.
Banks were also boosted by the Fed turning on the money taps, with Royal Bank of Scotland rising 8.9p to 282.8p as it confirmed the proposed flotation of its Direct Line insurance business. The division could be worth around £3bn.
But BSkyB, beaten by BT to a £152m rugby television rights deal, has dropped 11p to 733p despite news it had bought back another 350,000 shares.
With risk back on the agenda, more defensive stocks were unwanted. GlaxoSmithKline is down 20.5p at £14.19 and AstraZeneca 19p lower at 2893.5p.
Reckitt Benckiser has fallen 26p to £36.08 after analysts at Liberum Capital issued a sell note:
For the buy case to work one would have to assume earnings from [Reckitt Benkiser's pharmaceuticals division] at least doubles; given the threat of generics and potential alternative treatments we think that is not realistic.
