FTSE 100 movers: 'Dovish' Fed, Deutsche Bank boost miners

Shares of miners and oilfield services firms paced gains on the top flight index on Wednesday after the head of the US central bank appeared to leave the door open to interest rate cuts, pushing the US dollar lower and crude oil and copper futures higher.

Against that backdrop, stock in Antofagasta, Glencore, BHP and Rio Tinto were all in the plus column.

Also helping to prop up the sector, analysts at Deutsche Bank marked up their target prices for all of those shares, aside from Glencore.

Cigarette maker Imperial Brands meanwhile was higher on follow-through buying a day after it rebased its dividend policy.

Going the other way, Micro Focus fell sharply after analysts at Citi and Credit Suisse reiterated 'sell' ratings.

"We continue to see downside risk to consensus forecasts and believe shares misprice longer-term FCF potential," Citi told clients in a research note.

Ashtead was also lower, weighed down by a downgrade out of Morgan Stanley to 'equalweight'.

FTSE 100 - Risers

Smurfit Kappa Group (SKG) 2,540.00p 3.00%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 862.80p 1.79%
Scottish Mortgage Inv Trust (SMT) 558.50p 1.73%
Imperial Brands (IMB) 2,015.00p 1.72%
Ferguson (FERG) 5,736.00p 1.52%
Tesco (TSCO) 237.10p 1.50%
Glencore (GLEN) 270.15p 1.48%
Barratt Developments (BDEV) 584.20p 1.35%
Pearson (PSON) 855.40p 1.18%
Just Eat (JE.) 641.20p 1.17%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Micro Focus International (MCRO) 1,753.00p -11.73%
Coca-Cola HBC AG (CDI) (CCH) 2,726.00p -2.01%
WPP (WPP) 961.00p -2.00%
British Land Company (BLND) 540.00p -1.93%
BT Group (BT.A) 192.38p -1.79%
Carnival (CCL) 3,473.00p -1.78%
Land Securities Group (LAND) 837.80p -1.76%
Ocado Group (OCDO) 1,215.00p -1.74%
Fresnillo (FRES) 875.00p -1.73%
Prudential (PRU) 1,727.00p -1.62%