Reuters: Hot Stocks: Banks lead Britain's FTSE higher on monetary easing expectations

Reuters: Hot Stocks Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Banks lead Britain's FTSE higher on monetary easing expectations May 1st 2013, 11:04 Wed May 1, 2013 7:04am EDT * FTSE 100 opens month higher, gains 0.6 percent * Miners gain after Anto output update * Main fallers go ex-dividend * European markets shut for a public holiday By Alistair Smout LONDON, May 1 (Reuters) - Britain's top shares gained in thin trade on Wednesday as banks rose on expectations of more monetary easing and mining stocks climbed after a strong production update from Antofagasta. By 1034 GMT, the FTSE 100 had climbed 35.68 points, or 0.6 percent, to 6,465.80 points, rising on the first day of the month for the 10th straight time in a quiet-looking session with most European bourses closed for public holidays. The U.S. Federal Reserve announces it latest policy decision on Wednesday and the European Central Bank follows on Thursday. Expectations of more action to boost growth - in particular an anticipated ECB interest rate cut - has helped the FTSE rally more than 3 percent from mid-April lows. Banks gained 1.1 percent, taking their gains since April 18 to 6.9 percent. "Since January 2012, the FTSE 100 has only been down once on the first day of a month. Whether it's inflows, technicals or self-fulfilling, today it's up ahead of the Fed and ECB decisions," said Nick Xanders, head of European equity strategy at BTIG, adding that an ECB rate cut was now fully priced in. "If they come out with some special tool, we could keep going up, but if they just cut by 25 basis points, we could ease off these levels, and if they do nothing, we're down 3-4 percent over the next week or two." Miners joined banks among the top sectoral gainers, with Chilean copper miner Antofagasta up 1.8 percent after reporting a 13 percent rise in first-quarter copper output. "Antofagasta reported a solid quarterly update. Total copper output at 183.8kt was in line with company expectations and slightly ahead of our model," Investec said in a note. That helped the sector - down 20 percent so far in 2013 - shrug off manufacturing data showing China's economy unexpectedly slowed in April. On the downside, the index's top fallers all traded without entitlement to their latest dividend payout. Admiral Group, Barclays, Croda, ITV, Reed Elsevier, and Weir Group all went ex-divided on Wednesday, which by Reuters' calculations at current market prices shaved 2.91 points off the index. (Editing by Hugh Lawson) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions