London midday: Precious metals miners pace gains as silver surges

London stocks had extended gains by midday on Monday, with precious metals miners pacing the advance as silver prices surged.

The FTSE 100 was up 1.3% at 6,490.12.

In equity markets, precious metals miner Fresnillo was sitting pretty at the top of the FTSE 100 as silver prices were targeted by Reddit retail traders. Polymetal, Hochschild and Centamin also shone.

Neil Wilson, head of markets at Markets.com, said: "Retail traders are herding into silver in the same way they have driven the likes of GameStop over the last week. Prices gapped up from Friday’s settlement at $26.914 to north of $28 and quickly cleared out the daily resistance from the September 1st high at $28.91 and then kicked on to $30 by the start of the European session.

"Could gold be next? I doubt it, but we live in interesting times. What we don’t know is exactly how this is happening - clearing out of shorts by worried hedge funds, retail-driven bid, ETFs flows driving the physical market, smart-money front-running the trade, or a combination of all these."

Miners and housebuilders were also on the rise, with Barratt, Persimmon, Anglo American and Glencore all firmer.

CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson suggested housebuilders could be up on "optimism over the UK economy seeing an easing of restrictions sooner rather than later as the vaccine rollout hits a new milestone as the government announced that all care home residents had been offered a jab".

Elsewhere, JD Sports Fashion rallied after agreeing to buy DTLR Villa, a US sports retailer, for $495m (£360m), of which about $100m will be used to repay debt.

Outside the FTSE 350, online fashion retailer Asos gained after buying four brands from the collapsed Arcadia group for £330m.

On the downside, education publisher Pearson was knocked lower by a downgrade to ‘sell’ from ‘buy’ at UBS.

Investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown lost ground despite lifting its interim dividend and reporting a 10% rise in first-half profit.

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 6,490.12 1.29%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 20,462.01 1.15%
techMARK (TASX) 4,091.07 0.77%

FTSE 100 - Risers

Fresnillo (FRES) 1,174.50p 18.92%
Polymetal International (POLY) 1,701.50p 7.62%
JD Sports Fashion (JD.) 790.60p 5.84%
Anglo American (AAL) 2,530.00p 4.81%
Barratt Developments (BDEV) 666.80p 4.38%
Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 4,362.00p 4.13%
Glencore (GLEN) 256.40p 4.06%
Persimmon (PSN) 2,653.00p 4.00%
Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 152.25p 3.96%
BHP Group (BHP) 2,084.00p 3.60%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Pearson (PSON) 791.20p -2.63%
Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 1,687.00p -1.26%
Diageo (DGE) 2,923.50p -0.86%
Royal Dutch Shell 'A' (RDSA) 1,330.60p -0.55%
Royal Dutch Shell 'B' (RDSB) 1,267.80p -0.35%
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 142.90p -0.07%
British American Tobacco (BATS) 2,660.00p 0.09%
British Land Company (BLND) 449.20p 0.11%
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 1,359.00p 0.15%
Imperial Brands (IMB) 1,472.50p 0.17%

FTSE 250 - Risers

Hochschild Mining (HOC) 260.00p 13.04%
Ferrexpo (FXPO) 299.40p 6.09%
AO World (AO.) 330.00p 5.77%
IP Group (IPO) 99.80p 5.05%
Centamin (DI) (CEY) 119.80p 4.45%
Virgin Money UK (VMUK) 135.25p 4.32%
Provident Financial (PFG) 254.60p 3.92%
Dunelm Group (DNLM) 1,198.00p 3.63%
Bellway (BWY) 2,853.00p 3.56%
Capita (CPI) 36.26p 3.54%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

Micro Focus International (MCRO) 424.60p -4.61%
Hammerson (HMSO) 22.27p -3.84%
Sirius Real Estate Ltd. (SRE) 91.70p -3.37%
TUI AG Reg Shs (DI) (TUI) 342.00p -3.12%
Rank Group (RNK) 122.80p -1.76%
Jlen Environmental Assets Group Limited NPV (JLEN) 114.00p -1.30%
TI Fluid Systems (TIFS) 250.20p -1.26%
Moneysupermarket.com Group (MONY) 264.80p -1.19%
Liontrust Asset Management (LIO) 1,265.00p -1.17%
Herald Investment Trust (HRI) 2,190.00p -1.13%