London open: Stocks in the black as miners rally; HSBC in focus

London stocks rose in early trade on Monday, with miners pacing the gains amid rising metals prices, ahead of a week packed full of corporate news and the Autumn Budget.

At 0840 BST, the FTSE 100 was up 0.3% at 7,227.46.

Sentiment got a boost as shares of embattled Chinese firm Evergrande rallied after its chairman signalled that it would be concentrating on its growing electric vehicles unit going forward, rather than the troubled property business.

Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Ava Trade, said: "This week, stock traders will be looking closely at the Nasdaq index as technology giants such as Microsoft, Facebook, and Alphabet are scheduled to release their earnings reports over the next few days.

"Growth stocks have been performing relatively better, with the energy sector gaining nearly 11% in October. Similarly, share prices of other growth sectors like manufacturing, construction, and financials have also jumped more than 7% in October. The rise in these sectors indicates that worries about supply chain bottlenecks are starting to wind down."

In equity markets, miners were the standout gainers as copper prices rose, with Antofagasta, BHP, Rio, Glencore and Anglo American all higher.

HSBC nudged up after it reported bumper third-quarter profits that smashed expectations and unveiled plans for a share buyback of up to $2bn. The bank’s reported pre-tax profit for the third quarter jumped 75.8% year on year to $5.4 billion, well beyond the $3.776bn forecast by analysts in estimates compiled by the bank. Revenue rose 0.7% to $12bn, compared with an expected 3.1% rise.

HSBC also released around $700m in Covid-19 bad debt provision.

Online trading platform Plus500 pushed higher after it posted a dip in third-quarter earnings but said full-year revenues and underlying earnings were set to be ahead of analysts’ expectations after an "excellent performance" so far this year.

Elsewhere, Weir Group was boosted by an upgrade to ‘outperform’ from ‘neutral’ at Exane.

On the downside, Darktrace was under the cosh after an initiation at ‘sell’ by Peel Hunt.

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 7,227.46 0.32%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 22,962.83 0.14%
techMARK (TASX) 4,589.41 0.08%

FTSE 100 - Risers

Antofagasta (ANTO) 1,463.50p 1.81%
BHP Group (BHP) 1,975.00p 1.75%
Pershing Square Holdings Ltd NPV (PSH) 2,960.00p 1.54%
Rio Tinto (RIO) 4,741.50p 1.48%
BP (BP.) 359.95p 1.39%
Glencore (GLEN) 371.95p 1.35%
Evraz (EVR) 640.00p 1.11%
Royal Dutch Shell 'B' (RDSB) 1,786.60p 1.07%
Anglo American (AAL) 2,786.50p 1.07%
Royal Dutch Shell 'A' (RDSA) 1,767.60p 1.05%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Reckitt Benckiser Group (RKT) 5,461.00p -0.98%
Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,878.00p -0.95%
WPP (WPP) 946.40p -0.73%
Imperial Brands (IMB) 1,571.50p -0.66%
Informa (INF) 515.60p -0.62%
United Utilities Group (UU.) 996.00p -0.60%
Next (NXT) 7,790.00p -0.59%
Smith & Nephew (SN.) 1,285.50p -0.58%
Land Securities Group (LAND) 676.60p -0.56%
BT Group (BT.A) 136.00p -0.51%

FTSE 250 - Risers

Weir Group (WEIR) 1,715.00p 2.85%
Plus500 Ltd (DI) (PLUS) 1,428.50p 2.55%
Ferrexpo (FXPO) 318.40p 2.51%
Harbour Energy (HBR) 371.20p 2.48%
easyJet (EZJ) 610.20p 2.28%
Network International Holdings (NETW) 357.70p 2.23%
Fidelity Emerging Markets Limited Ptg NPV (FEML) 841.00p 1.82%
Hochschild Mining (HOC) 152.60p 1.60%
Capita (CPI) 47.98p 1.48%
Wood Group (John) (WG.) 228.70p 1.42%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

Darktrace (DARK) 900.50p -4.76%
Chrysalis Investments Limited NPV (CHRY) 245.00p -1.61%
Blackrock Throgmorton Trust (THRG) 932.00p -1.38%
Baillie Gifford Japan Trust (BGFD) 970.00p -1.22%
Chemring Group (CHG) 296.50p -1.17%
TP Icap Group (TCAP) 160.86p -0.97%
Drax Group (DRX) 528.00p -0.94%
Pennon Group (PNN) 1,142.00p -0.87%
Big Yellow Group (BYG) 1,493.00p -0.86%
Countryside Properties (CSP) 463.20p -0.86%