FTSE 100 movers: Miners, RSA rally; AB Foods slumps on MS downgrade

London’s FTSE 100 index was up 0.7% to 6,266.94 in afternoon trading, with traders attributing the gains to optimism the UK will vote to remain in the EU on Thursday.

Miners were the standout gainers on Wednesday as metals prices advanced, with Glencore, Anglo American and Rio Tinto all sharply higher.

On Tuesday, Rio Tinto announced that its iron ore chief was leaving the company under new group chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques’ restructured organisation structure.

RSA Insurance was also on the front foot as Barclays reiterated its ‘overweight’ rating and said it sees 15% upside after an encouraging meeting with some of the company's management.

The bank said RSA's chief financial officer Scott Egan repeated the recent mantra that, while it is early days on the roadmap to its 2018 targets, the company is on track and is "focused intently on executing".

On the downside, Associated British Foods was under pressure after Morgan Stanley downgraded the stock to ‘equalweight’ from ‘overweight’ and slashed the price target to 2,650p from 3,500p as it took a fresh low at Primark.

The bank said that while Primark remains a great business with attractive long-term growth prospects, its like-for-like sales have slowed to zero over the last 18 months or so.

“With Kantar data suggesting that trading momentum in the UK has weakened further recently, we now expect –1% LFL for FY H2.This means we now expect LFL to be negative for the year as a whole – something that we have not seen from Primark in more than 15 years.”

Risers

Glencore (GLEN) 150.55p 3.05%
Anglo American (AAL) 678.20p 3.02%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 571.60p 3.01%
Old Mutual (OML) 193.10p 2.82%
RSA Insurance Group (RSA) 487.50p 2.80%
Rio Tinto (RIO) 2,080.00p 2.39%
Aviva (AV.) 443.30p 2.21%
Standard Life (SL.) 338.60p 2.17%
Experian (EXPN) 1,322.00p 2.16%
Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 1,355.00p 2.11%

Fallers

Associated British Foods (ABF) 2,820.00p -2.79%
Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) 360.70p -0.91%
Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 69.97p -0.51%
Ashtead Group (AHT) 1,032.00p -0.48%
Kingfisher (KGF) 363.80p -0.47%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 431.10p -0.44%
Coca-Cola HBC AG (CDI) (CCH) 1,418.00p -0.35%
SABMiller (SAB) 4,273.00p -0.31%
Next (NXT) 5,450.00p -0.27%
Imperial Brands (IMB) 3,660.00p -0.18%