FTSE 100 Robust Despite Banking Sector News

Lloyds Banking Group, down 3.5% and Royal Bank of Scotland, down 7.8%, were amongst FTSE 100 fallers on Monday morning, as investors awaited news of a £25 billion refinancing package from Lloyds and digested news that Royal Bank of Scotland will need to divest some of its businesses to comply with European Commission competition rules.

Dominic Turner
shareprices.com - Monday, November 02, 2009

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Royal Bank of Scotland Group

Nevertheless, sharply higher metal prices, particularly copper and bullish economic data from purchasing managers in the U.K. and China and Randgold Resources, forced up mining stocks and oil majors benefited from rising crude oil prices. In fact, by midday, the blue chip index was up 31.71 points, or 0.6%, at 5,076.26, having closed down 1.8% on Friday.

Buying shares in Randgold Resources was popular after the company announced that, in conjunction with its partner AngloGold Ashanti, an agreement to buy a further 20% stake in the Moto gold project from the Congolese government for $113.6 million. Randgold's share price rose 4.5%, making it one of the best performers in the top tier. Elsewhere in the mining sector, Rio Tinto received a fillip from Citgroup, which maintained its "buy" rating and £33 target price; there was also speculation that BHP Billiton may also renew its interest in Rio Tinto and its share price rose 67p to 27.60p. Fellow miners Anglo American, ENRC, Kazakhyms, Lonmin, Vedanta and Xstrata also made healthy gains and it was a similar story for oil majors BG Group, BP and Royal Dutch Shell whose share prices were up by between 0.4% and 0.9%.

 

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