Market overview: Gilts jump after weak employment report

1630:Close Stocks ended the day notably higher following the Chancellor’s Budget with financials such as St.James’s Place leading the way. StanChart led gains on the back of an upgrade out of Barclays. CRH also advanced after reports that Lafarge and Holcim have been holding meetings in a bid to save a merger. Gilts registered sharp gains as the latest employment report showed wage growth coming in comfortably below analysts’ forecasts. The pound also ended the day lower. FTSE 100 up 108 points at 6,945.20.

1610: There are still reasons to worry about China, especially the country’s property market, such as property deflation, PPI deflation, deposit growth, FX outflows. However, Chinese cyclical indicators have now fallen back to levels which often trigger a policy response from the authorities in Beijing. PE multiples and “yield relatives” are also one standard deviation “cheap”, analysts at Credit Suisse say. For that reason, they have increased the weighting given to miners in their model portfolio, raising it to a marginal underweight. They also prefer them to oil, particularly Anglo American and Glencore, they add.

1430: US oil inventories jumped by 9.6m barrels over the seven days ending on 13 March. Daily imports were higher by 703,000 barrels a day from the previous week, according to the Energy Information Administration.

1323: The UK Budget has revealed the government will help North Sea oil and gas industry, from start of next month, with a new simple, generous tax allowance to stimulate investment, investments in new seismic surveys, a cut in the petroleum revenue tax from 50% to 30% to support investment in older fields, and reduction in the supplementary charge from 30% cent to 25% and backdated from this. Osborne said this will boost expected North Sea oil production by 15% by end of the decade.

1315: The bank levy is set to go up 0.21%, raising £900m, Osborne has unveiled in his UK Budget speech.

1300: JP Morgan has pushed back its forecast for the date of the first increase in Bank Rate to the first quarter of 2016 from the last quarter of 2015.

1251: Riksbank surprises with 15 basis point rate cut to -0.25%.

1250: Osborne says state will sell £9bn worth of shares in Lloyds this year. The OBR has upped its GDP view for this year to 2.5%.

1211: May copper futures lower by 2.14% to $257.3.

1137: Deutsche Bank has upped its year-end target for the Stoxx 600 to 410 from 365 previously. "On balance, we believe this could still prove conservative," they add.

1127: 10-year Gilt yields are moving quickly lower on the heels of today's employment report, now off by seven basis points to 1.61%. The rally in Gilts can continue, Deutsche Bank says.

0930: The unemployment rate in Britain remained at 5.7% in January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Economists had been anticipating a drop of one tenth of a percentage point to 5.6%. Earnings growth slowed to 1.8%, sending the pound immediately lower.

0838: Stocks are edging higher ahead of today’s FOMC meeting and Budget. Standard Chartered is in the lead early, followed by Marks&Spencer on the back of positive comments out of analysts at JP Morgan. Some market commentary is taking note of the protests around the inauguration of the ECB’s new headquarters. Goldman Sachs economist Kevin Daly has pointed out in remarks to Bloomberg TV that the OBR is likely to revise its forecasts for economic growth in the UK this year. Goldman currently estimates British GDP will expand at a 3% clip both this year and next. FTSE 100 up 19 points to 6,856.62.